Nothing in Common
by L.M.Lewis
Summary: A chance meeting, and the easy way out is a lot harder than Mark expected.


Disclaimer: These characters are not mine and I make no profit from them.

Author's Note: Set in the first few months. If you want to know what was discussed under the basketball hoop, see Cheride's story, 'Goin' Somewhere Slow'.

This also contains many references to characters and occurrences from _The Black Widow._Haven't seen Season One lately? Filapiano is a corrupt police captain who once locked horns with the judge, and got away for lack of proof. Hardcastle finally nails him when the captain sets Mark up to take the fall for his current shady informant.

**Nothing in Common**

By L. M. Lewis

McCormick gave the vehicle a considering look—the front bumper badly dented on the driver's side, hanging askew, the side mirror dangling by a single screw and smashed to pieces.

"If you want something to take down bad guys with, I think we should look into a vehicle with a little more weight to it. A Monte Carlo, maybe, some sort of nice fleet car," he said sternly. Then he shook his head. "And parts for '64 'Vettes don't come from the factory; it's going to take some scrounging to get this fixed up."

Hardcastle said nothing. There wasn't much he could say. He'd been driving, and the decision to cut off the bad guy's Buick had not been one of his more rational ones. That he and McCormick had only bruises to show for it was little short of a miracle.

"I s'pose you know where to scrounge?" he finally asked.

The younger man shrugged. "Sure, I know most of the places, but this isn't like going to the auto parts store and placing an order. Scrounging takes_ time_."

Hardcastle frowned, but said nothing.

"Which _means_," Mark added emphatically, "that you don't get to holler and carry on if the lawn doesn't get done, and you don't put out an APB for me if I'm late for dinner."

"I don't 'holler'," the judge said grumpily.

"_Hah_. You didn't even try to deny the carrying on part, huh?"

The frown deepened.

"Okay," McCormick checked his watch, "so, I'll get a start on it right after lunch."

00000

Mark couldn't help it, despite the stiffness in his neck and the ache in his ribs where he'd slammed into the door, there was a feeling of holiday about it, just getting out from under Hardcastle's watchful eye. He'd taken the truck, so he'd have a way of hauling back the parts if he got lucky. He was half surprised the judge hadn't pushed to accompany him—more guilt there than he would have figured the guy for.

_All right, then, that's not such a bad thing. He might have gotten us __both__ killed. _

And it wasn't like he was making up the thing about scrounging. Parts for a nineteen-year-old 'Vette didn't grow on trees. There was a good chance he would have to make a couple of stops before he found what he needed.

Or maybe not. There was a place out in the Valley that he'd had luck with. He hadn't been there for a few years. _Before Quentin._ He shook his head once. It wasn't like they knew him or anything. Places like that had a lot of turnover with the help. Guys came, guys went.

And, in the meantime, he was out on his own on a beautiful fall afternoon. _Driving the ugliest truck in all of creation._ He shook his head again. It didn't matter. He was out. Driving.

He turned off onto the frontage road, and then onto the dirt drive that was marked as the entrance to 'Waterman's Wrecking and Salvage'. He pulled up to the dusty-windowed quonset hut, got out, stretched stiffly, and smiled.

Truth was, he liked scrounging. It would have been hard to maintain an air of patient suffering if Hardcase had been along, so better for him to be back at the ranch, feeling guilty for sending Tonto out on a scouting mission.

Tonto grinned cheerfully and, once he'd gotten the kinks worked out, sauntered over to the door marked 'Office'—a quick, perfunctory knock and he entered. The guy behind the desk was leaning back, feet up and eyes closed, with an air of bored dissipation about him, maybe partly due to the beer can in his right fist. He blinked groggily at the sound of a customer, and took his feet down off the desk.

The next part, Mark wasn't expecting.

"Skid?"

And a moment too late he realized that the face, dissipation and all, was familiar. He flipped through the file cabinet of his mind and pulled out a card marked 'Clarkville, C Block' and sub-titled—

"It's_ me_, ol' Lester."

"Lester, yeah," Mark exhaled slowly. Lester Strunk. Exactly what the odds might be, that he'd run into someone in the ordinary course of things, someone who knew him from inside—_that_ he didn't want to calculate.

_Not as unlikely as you pulling Hardcase two trials in a row._ He thought about that one for a moment, then realized he must have been scowling. Lester's expression had gone to wary puzzlement. Mark tried for a chagrined smile; after all, it wasn't Lester's fault that he was here.

The other man eased back a little. He seemed to accept Mark's passing mood as the ordinary nature of things. "So, how ya been? How _long's _it been—shit, must be four years, huh?"

Mark nodded. That, or maybe a little more.

"After you got out of Clarkville, I was waiting to hear you made it in the big time. I thought maybe you'd get back into racing. You always said you were gonna."

"Ah . . ."

"Yeah . . . I heard you got a bum rap. They put you back on the bus, huh? A deuce in Quentin somebody said."

"Yeah," Mark said sullenly. "Very bum."

"But now you're out again." Lester grinned and pointed him to a chair. "That's cool."

Mark supposed he was right, and this was all supposed to be something along the lines of moral support, but he'd suddenly felt the passage of time, the loss of opportunity, as though it were a fresh blow. He sat down a little heavily.

"You okay?" Lester asked, with something very nearly solicitous in his tone.

"Oh," Mark looked up, "yeah."

"So, how's it hangin'?" the other man put one foot, and then the second, back up in the desk. The silence from Mark's side didn't seem to perturb him. "Hey, I ran into Mickey Noonan the other day; you remember Mick?"

Mark did—Noonan, eighteen months for B&E. He was on the long list of proscribed associates, fellow parolees, but Mark had seen him once or twice. He couldn't be expected to avoid _everybody_.

"Mick told me something crazy." Lester scratched the side of his nose. "Said you was hooked up with a judge, he had you doing his yard work or something."

"Or something," Mark repeated flatly.

"Said it was Hardcastle." Lester squinted narrowly. "But that was the guy who sent you up on the bum rap, wasn't it? That's what Mick said."

"Yeah."

Mark left it at that. He was pretty sure Lester wasn't done talking, and he was starting to think that sitting down had been a bad idea. To his relief, though, the guy seemed to be back to merely mulling it over.

"Hey, want a beer?" Lester sat forward again, in a gesture of belated hospitality.

He reached down to a cooler, on the floor at his side, half pushed under the desk. Mark heard the rattle of ice and accepted the can, dripping cold, hoping it signaled a change of topic. He thought he'd better work out some sort of explanation for questions that were bound to keep coming up. Damned if he knew what it was going to be, though.

'_It was Hardcase or hard time.'_ That had a nice, jauntily bitter ring to it. He almost said it out loud, but he didn't.

He cracked the pull tab and took a long swig. Then he eased into the chair a bit, trying to get back the lighter mood he had walked in with.

"So," Lester took one last, long swallow, to finish off his own can, "what brings ya in here? You weren't lookin' for me I guess."

"Ah . . ." Mark roused himself from his useless efforts at reacquiring cheerfulness. "Nah, parts. A '64 Vette. Front bumper, side mirror."

"A classic, huh? Nice. That's what you're driving now? Must be doing okay."

"Not mine. I'm fixing it for . . . someone." It had almost slipped out as 'a friend'. Wherever the hell that thought had come from, he wasn't sure. A moment later he was glad he hadn't said it.

"Old Hardcase has a _'Vette_? Who woulda thought? A coot like him."

Mark shrugged. "Well, he isn't too careful with it; it got banged up pretty bad." He let out a breath, feeling like he was on safer ground. "You got anything I can use?"

Lester pondered. "Might," he finally said. "I know there's a couple of 'em out there. One's a '64, with back-end damage. We can go take a look. You just scouting or you come here to deal?"

"Deal. I need to get this thing drivable. We'll pay cash." He saw Lester's eyes go a little brighter as he took his feet down again and boosted himself up.

"Hey," he grinned, "I can run up a dupe on the bill; pad it a little. What Waterman and Hardcase don't know won't hurt 'em a bit. You and me, we can split the difference."

Mark looked up from his half-empty can of beer, knowing he ought to have seen it coming, the angle. There was always an angle and he'd gotten to the point, sometime in the last couple of years, where he could see them all—know where everybody was coming from all the time. How the hell had he lost that edge so quickly?

Lester was looking at him expectantly, like he was waiting to be thanked, and, in truth, that would be the easiest thing to do; anything else would require more explanation than he understood himself. So, it took him by complete surprise when he heard himself say, "Nah, Les, gotta play this one straight. Sorry."

He left it lying there, unadorned. He couldn't decide, from the puzzled look on the other man's face, if Lester figured him for crazy, or a coward. Whatever he thought, no doubt it would be back on the grapevine inside of a few days. For a bunch of guys who weren't supposed to associate with each other, ex-cons seemed to know an awful lot about each other's business.

Mark let out a long, weary breath. Didn't matter; he only had to worry about what one guy thought, for now, so straight and narrow it'd be.

"Wanna show me where that car is?" he prodded, getting slowly to his feet, finishing the beer off in a couple more deep gulps and tossing the can toward the trash in the corner.

"Yeah, sure," Lester finally replied, sounding slightly irritated.

00000

They wound up looking at two. The mirror came off the '63, and the bumper from a '64 which had already been extensively cannibalized. Lester had provided the tools, but hadn't had much else to say, after setting the price—coolly stated but fair.

Watching Mark fiddle with the rusty bolts, he gradually seemed to warm up again, as though he'd finally concluded that the refusal to split a kickback had been based on Mark having an angle of his own, something he couldn't afford to screw up for a quick profit. Couldn't blame a guy for that, it seemed, and Lester was practically winking and nodding by the time the money changed hands.

"Look," he said, in an unnecessarily confidential voice, as Mark loaded the bumper into the back of the truck, "sorry about that little proposition earlier. Small potatoes for a guy like you."

Mark said nothing, hoping silence would carry him through.

"I usually don't bother with the small stuff, myself," Lester added with an air of self-importance.

McCormick looked back over his shoulder sharply, trying not to encourage any confidences, but still saying nothing.

"You were pretty good with the cars, I remember. Least that's what everyone said."

"Repossession," Mark said flatly. "And I'm out of that now."

"Yeah," Lester said with a smugly knowing smile. "Yard work, right?" he drawled the last word out, and gave it a slow nod. "But, hey, if you're free a couple nights a month—"

Mark knew, beyond a doubt, that he ought to say 'No, I'm not.' right then and there, cutting this thing off unspoken. He also knew that he'd somehow, through no credit of his own, managed to climb back up into Lester's esteem, and staying there would cost him nothing but a moment of silence.

_You care what he thinks?_

_The damn grapevine._

He said nothing.

Lester's smile had become a grin. "I got a good thing going here. No small potatoes, either. We move 'em in, and we move 'em out, and nobody notices if there's one or two extra lying around once in a while. I could use a guy like you, someone who's handy with cars. Cash on the barrel."

First silence, now one little word. The slope was slipperier than he remembered. Mark slammed the tailgate closed decisively, wishing he'd acquired more of a reputation for being the silent, hardassed type. He knew Lester was expecting a response.

He settled for 'maybe,' keeping that as vaguely non-committal as he could. Let Lester do with it what he would. "Thanks for the beer," he added, as an afterthought.

The other man gave him another nod, as though he thought he'd heard a good deal more than had been spoken.

"Hey," he stood there, toolbox in one hand, as Mark climbed into the truck, "You got a number I can reach you at?"

Mark paused as he reached to turn the ignition key, that close to having made a nearly-clean getaway. He was thinking fast. "No," he finally said sharply. It probably hadn't been as long a hesitation as it had felt. "I'm staying up at Hardcastle's place. He's got a damn estate." _Unnecessary detail_, he chided himself. "You sure as hell can't call me there." This seemed to be working. Lester looked mostly sympathetic.

"I'll call you," McCormick added, and then he tacked on another 'maybe' for good luck. A moment later he had the truck in gear, pulling out and heading down the drive, all before Lester could say anything else.

00000

The kid was back surprisingly soon. The judge had half suspected he would string this project out over a couple of days. He had what he'd gone looking for, too, and he wordlessly handed over change from the fifty. In fact, his whole demeanor was puzzling, though there was nothing obvious enough for Hardcastle to call him on it. Maybe it was just the contrast to how he'd been a couple hours ago—looking pleased to be running the errand.

_Not happy to be back, though._

Hardcastle scratched the side of his nose as he watched the younger man unloading the pieces. Maybe it was just the aches and pains of the accident catching up with him. He finally ventured an inquiry. "Everything went okay?"

He got a grunted 'yeah' in return. There was nowhere to go with that. He couldn't very well rag the kid for not running his mouth. In spite of that, he would have bet what was left from the fifty that something was definitely wrong.

_Well, if there is, then I suppose you'll find out __what__ it is, sooner or later._ He let out a heavy breath and retreated back into the house. Later was not always better than sooner.

00000

Hardcastle had been on his case, almost from the moment he'd pulled up the drive, giving everything that once-over of his, looking for something, _anything._ This time it was a dry well, though Mark had pretty much made up his mind that if the guy came up with so much as one gripe, he'd make him eat that change.

_No, you wouldn't._ He shook his head in self-disgust.

But the man said nothing, just all that looking, and then a question, in a very un-Hardcastlelike, civil tone.

Mark answered 'yeah', fully aware that it had come out sullen. _Pull yourself together._ But, to his surprise, there were no follow-up questions, and after a moment more of the unvoiced, interrogatory stare, the guy left him to himself.

00000

The 'Vette went to Howard for bodywork and reassembly and returned home appearing no worse for wear. The bruises faded and the stiffness receded. Whatever had been bugging the kid, it also seemed to have gradually lifted—or maybe it had been tamped down, hard to say.

And, after a few days, Hardcastle began to suspect he'd just been over-reading the situation. Things were back to normal—well, maybe 'normal' wasn't precisely the word that most people would use to describe the two days of hunting down J. J. Beal, his last, and most wayward rehabilitation project.

The kid had gone to it, even showed some initiative, way too _much_ initiative in Hardcastle's opinion. When push came to shove he'd been there, backing him up. And when it was all done, they'd had a talk, under the basketball hoop, that had maybe been long overdue.

00000

A week after that, Frank appeared, an unexpected visit as far as McCormick knew. He supposed that didn't mean much; from what he could tell, the police lieutenant and the judge were good enough friends that a social visit didn't require any announcement. But in the middle of a weekday morning, and Frank driving one of the company cars—it looked like business.

No greeting had been tossed his way, but, then, he was far enough off in the shrubbery that Harper might not even have noticed him. Mark continued to prune, in a desultatory fashion, until curiosity got the best of him. Even slave labor was entitled to a glass of water now and then, and, from an efficiency standpoint, the main house was closer than the gatehouse.

He stuffed the pruning shears into his back pocket and sauntered toward the house, angling for the front door, rather than the kitchen. Not much to his surprise, he heard voices even before he was on the porch—Frank's low and intense, punctuated by an occasional shorter burst from Hardcastle. He still couldn't make out the line of the argument, though argument it was, and all came to a standing halt the moment he'd given the door a quick rap, and then let himself in.

"Water," he said in embarrassed explanation, standing in the hallway with both men glaring at him from the den.

Harper was on his feet, standing foursquare in front of the judge's desk. Whatever they'd been discussing, it all appeared to be tabled now. Mark frowned, nodded once, and hustled down the hallway, hearing only his own footsteps, and a few nearly-inaudible words from the judge.

_Something personal_. He found a glass and went though the motions of filling it and taking a drink. _None of your business_.

Except there was one point of mutual interest for Harper and Hardcastle that_ was_ his concern as well. Mark swallowed hard, reviewed his conscience, and drew a blank.

He strolled back down the hall, again hearing the voices, pitched even lower. The pause in the conversation was again timed with his arrival at the doorway to the den. This time Frank had taken a seat, though he still looked tense.

There was a quick jerk from Hardcastle's chin. Mark knew it was a peremptory summons. He sidled into the room, wondering if he should sit down. The options were quickly narrowed. The judge pointed to a chair. Mark started to sit, then straightened momentarily, to remove the pruning sheers, an awkward emblem of office. He laid them on the corner of the desk.

He couldn't help it; the silence, though short, was unnerving, and he was barely back sitting again before he blurted out, "So what did I do _now_?"

Hardcastle ran his hand over his face. Harper snorted once, and said, "Well, that's better than 'I didn't do it.'"

"It's hearsay, that's all," Hardcastle said with a quick negative sweep of his hand. He was obviously repeating an earlier argument.

"What is?" Mark asked nervously.

But Harper was already shaking his head. "I'm just here to give you notice. The guys reviewing the tapes tapped me to be the messenger. They heard what you did to Filapiano."

"He was dirty. He'd been dirty for a long time. That had nothing to do with McCormick."

"Yeah," Frank shrugged his agreement, "I know that, just the way it looks to some people, like . . ."

"Like I took Filapiano down because he set up McCormick?"

"Ah . . . yeah," Frank grimaced, "something like that. Though mostly everybody knows he was dirty."

"'Mostly'?"

"Aw, you know there's always people who take sides, no matter what the facts are. And, come on Milt, look at from their position, just a bunch of guys listening to tapes, and all of a sudden they think they've got something that'll bring the hell-fire Milton C. Hardcastle down on _them_ like a ton of bricks."

"What 'something'?" Mark asked anxiously.

" 'Something'," Hardcastle scowled, "like a guy telling another guy on a tapped line that you're interested in doing some part-time work for a car-heisting ring." And then he turned back to Harper and grumped, "It's not like I'd do that, you know. I wouldn't cover for him. And this _is_ just hearsay. Hell, it's not even _that_."

"No," Harper conceded, "but it's enough to make the guys higher up want to take a look in his direction, and maybe slip a word over to the parole board. So I hope to hell when they _do_ look there's nothing for them to see." Frank cast a long, stern look of his own in Mark's direction.

"'Course not," Hardcastle harrumphed. He was looking now, too, and there was little doubt in Mark's mind that the cold chill of recollection had translated itself into something in his own expression. Both the other men had settled into staring. The judge seemed suddenly more worried.

"There _isn't_, is there?" he added, with a new note of concern. "You met with this guy, Lester Strunk?" He was frowning. "Waterman's, that's were you got the parts for the 'Vette, wasn't it?"

Pieces were falling into place. Mark barely managed a nod before the judge plowed ahead. "Dammit, McCormick, he's an ex-con. That's a parole violation right there."

"I didn't know he was gonna be there," Mark replied, knowing it sounded like a pretty weak excuse.

"Tell me," Hardcastle's expression had gone a lot grimmer, "_exactly_ what happened."

Mark didn't even spare a worried glance at Harper. Trouble from that quarter had somehow become the lesser of two evils. The real danger was sitting on the other side of the desk.

_When you screw up he takes it personally. _

He realized he had only seconds to figure out the angle, and then, just as suddenly, he understood that if he lied now, it was over, finished. He might scrape his parole out of the fire, but the judge would know how he'd done it, and he would never believe him again.

He took a deep breath.

"Honest," he said, and he meant it, "I had no idea Lester was working there. I hadn't been there in," Mark frowned, "maybe four years. Hell, I didn't even recognize him right off. But he recognized me, oh yeah. 'Hi, Skid, how ya doin', buddy?' Judge, you think I _like_ running into old associates? Sure, and them giving me that look. The word is out."

Grim was now shaded with puzzlement.

"Well, _yeah,_" Mark said, "and how am I supposed to explain it?"

"Explain what?" Hardcastle asked in blunt confusion. "You're doing your parole. You're keeping your nose clean."

"I'm working for the guy who sent me _up_," Mark shot back in exasperation. This time he did spare a glance toward Frank, and at least there he got a half-nod of understanding. He turned back to the judge, struggling to soften his tone, "which, if you aren't from Planet Hardcastle, is kinda weird. I mean, even if we just call it yard work, even if they don't _know_ about the Lone Ranger stuff." He dropped his head back down and shook it slowly. "I shoulda walked out. I know. I just couldn't."

"So what _did _you do?" Hardcastle asked, almost quietly.

"Ah," Mark frowned, trying to get it all in the right order. "I sat down; we had a beer. I told him what I needed." The frown got a little deeper. "He offered to jack the bill up, split the overage. I told him 'nah'." He didn't look up to see what Hardcastle's reaction was. If he was going to accept credit for that, he'd have to take responsibility for the rest.

"Anyway," he said with a heavy sigh, "we went out and poked around and found the parts. Then," he hesitated, wanting to get the next bit right and hoping the hesitation didn't make it all seem contrived, "as I was getting ready to leave, he mentioned that he had something going." This time he did shoot a glance at Frank. No reaction there, just careful listening. "He wasn't real clear on what—"

"_McCormick_," the judge cut in sharply.

"Okay, well, he said they move cars 'in and out'. That's what he said, Judge. That's _all_ he said. That and he could use somebody who was good with cars. He was offering cash; he wanted me to do it a couple nights a month."

"All fits with what Strunk said on the tape," Frank said with dry relief.

But Hardcastle obviously thought the confession wasn't finished. He waited impatiently for a moment and then asked, pointedly, "What did you tell him?"

Mark sat back, increasing the distance between them. "I said . . ." He heard his voice; it had gone very flat. If there was a time to lie, it was now.

"I said 'maybe'."

He flinched. It had come out sounding damning. Worse yet, all the possible explanations sounded damnably pathetic. Still, he had to try to explain. "I didn't _mean_ 'maybe', you know. I just said it to get him off my back about it."

"'No' wouldn't have done a better job?" the judge said wearily.

It was worse than anger. It was something close to giving up. Mark was surprised by how much that hurt.

He sat there for a moment, wondering about that, trying to frame some sort of apology. Then something, from somewhere deeper down, flared up, hot and quick.

"'Maybe' isn't yes, and it was a whole lot easier than _no_." He drew himself up straighter in the chair, glaring back at Hardcastle. "But there's no way I'm ever going to be able to explain _that_ to a guy like you. You want perfect? You picked the wrong ex-con. Hell, if I was perfect, you wouldn't have had anything to hold over me in the first place."

He was back on his feet. He was vaguely aware that Frank was leaning forward, too, as though he thought it might come to blows. Mark brushed him back with a wave of his hand.

"I'll be in the gatehouse. Lemme know when you've figured out what you want to do with me." He turned and left without a look back.

00000

Silence. He hadn't even slammed the door. Hardcastle sat there, absorbing what had happened so fast that it hadn't made any sense while it was occurring. It was Frank who spoke first.

"What the hell was_ that_ all about?"

"Dunno." The judge shook his head. "Preemptive strike, maybe. But if I wanted to pull his ticket for associating with known felons I woulda yanked it when he did that crazy stunt with Teddy Hollins." He shot Frank a quick glance. "And it's still all hearsay on that tape. A 'maybe' isn't intent to commit."

"And you're not covering for him," Frank said dryly.

"Hell, no, any defense attorney worth his salt'd tell ya the same thing."

"You're his parole officer, not his defense attorney."

Hardcastle waved that away. "The law is the law." Then he frowned over his shoulder at the window. "But he's gotta start being more careful. Three years for conspiracy," he felt a cold almost-shudder run between his shoulder blades, "that's a lot to pay for a beer."

00000

Adrenaline had carried him all the way back to the gatehouse. But almost as soon as he was alone there, in a place he had too quickly started to think of as home, he felt both adrenalin and anger start to seep away, leaving him with only the cold fear of what would happen next.

_You said you'd never go back. You'd do whatever you had to._

_Can't help it. There are limits._

_This shouldn't have been one of them._

He sank down onto the sofa and waited for the knock on the door, not that either Frank or the judge would be likely to bother to knock in this situation. He wondered if he should pack some things. No, not much likelihood of needing anything where he was going.

The seconds spun out to minutes, which themselves passed slowly and silently. Fear began to give way to puzzlement, especially after he heard the sound of Frank's car starting up and pulling away. Mark checked his watch, often unreliable, but, in this case appearing accurate—it had been almost half an hour.

He wouldn't say that, after only two months, he knew Hardcastle _well_, but even after the first few days, he'd understood the guy didn't just sit on his duff when he thought something needed doing. McCormick suddenly knew it for a certainty; he wasn't getting his ticket yanked this time.

His moment of indiscretion in the salvage office had apparently been construed as a misdemeanor; and while technically that might be enough to bring him up in front of the parole board, Hardcase was looking the other way. _Just like he did with Teddy Hollins._

Clouds parted, but instead of relief, the hard, unwavering light of truth came glaring in. What might not be enough to get him thrown back into prison could still cause irreparable damage.

_To what?_

He puzzled over that one; unable to come up with a word for whatever it was they had—for what he might lose. It was a nagging enough concern, though, to get him back on his feet. And without any idea of exactly what that main concern might be, he quickly papered it over with something more immediate and obvious.

The bushes weren't going to prune themselves.

He froze, finding himself with one hand on the doorknob and the recollection of exactly where he'd left the pruning shears. He swallowed once, opened the door, and stepped outside.

00000

The knock on the door was so tentative that he might not have heard it, had he not been half-expecting it. Not much surprise, either, when he heard the door open. No greeting, though, just a couple of careful footfalls out in the hall, and then McCormick, appearing composed, in the doorway.

Composed, yes, but with a shade of uncertainty in his expression, just a hint of remorse. He slouched in, making a casual, one-handed gesture toward the corner of the desk where the shears lay, and said tersely, "Left 'em."

Hardcastle frowned. It was absolutely unfathomable. It was business as usual. He shook off that thought and pointed right back at the seat McCormick had occupied before.

The younger man almost controlled his grimace, and sank into the chair, looking resigned.

"Okay," the judge said, with a sigh, "you wanna explain to me what that was all about earlier?"

McCormick sat there in frozen silence, as though the question had taken him by surprise. There was something in his expression that suggested a chewing out might have been preferable.

Hardcastle frowned. "I mean, you couldn't've thought I'd throw ya back in the slammer because you ran into somebody at a junkyard. Sheesh, you had a guy hiding out here who was a known associate." He shook his head in disbelief.

Mark swallowed once and muttered, "Extenuating circumstances."

"I don't think this is a real good time for excuses. Besides, I already let that one slide." The judge pinched the bridge of his nose, then fastened the younger man with a steady gaze. "Look, you ran into somebody, okay, it's gonna happen. They want you to sit down and talk about old times, well, yeah, that happens, too. But there's gotta be a line in there, _somewhere_. You get that?"

One slow nod from McCormick, who was looking down at the pruning shears with something approaching desperate longing.

"And when they start talking shop, maybe that oughta be your cue to get out. Hit the road. Right?"

Another nod.

Hardcastle sighed again. The responses seemed to be lacking a little in the commitment department. "I dunno," he finally added with a huff of frustration, "maybe you need to decide which side you're on."

This got him a quick upward jerk of the younger man's gaze, a brief blaze in his eyes and a tight expression. A full second passed before he said, "You have to ask?" And then not giving him time to answer, he shook his head once, sharply. "How many times do I have to prove myself here?"

"I'm just saying," Hardcastle tried to temper his own voice, "that it won't matter if you get the big stuff right; they can still nail you on a technicality."

"'They?'" Mark cocked his head.

"_Yeah_," Hardcastle shrugged, "the parole board."

"You admit the whole system is stacked against us—ex-cons, I mean?" Mark said with some surprise. Despite the bitterness of the words, Hardcastle couldn't help notice that the tone had gone a little less harsh.

Hardcastle sat back and took a deep breath. "Look," he said, keeping it low and calm, "you did the stacking yourself when you got into trouble in the first place. Now there's rules, lots of 'em, and if you step outside the line . . ."

"There's only so much you can do," Mark finished for him.

"I didn't say that."

McCormick was giving him a quizzical look. The silence, though brief, was unnerving. "Filapiano," he finally said, "did you nail him because of me? I mean, because of him setting me up?"

The judge shook his head firmly.

"But you'd known he was dirty, for how long before that?"

"Knowing, and having proof are two different things. I didn't have any proof until he and Tina Gray pulled that double-cross on you."

"And," Mark appeared to be reasoning it through, "did that—him setting me up—did he _do _that because of you and him?"

This time there was a noticeable hesitation before the judge finally replied. "_That_ was because you fell for a bunch of hooey from a fast-talking lady, and _that_ happened because you stepped over the line in the first place, running off with her, waving a gun around." Hardcastle sat back and nodded once emphatically. "Whole bunch of parole violations there, kiddo."

Mark leaned forward, elbow on his knee and his chin on his fist—a guy thinking. He nodded with no apparent enthusiasm and said nothing else, just straightening up slowly and reaching for the shears.

"It shouldn't be so damn hard," the judge said stiffly, returning to the original problem. "Those guys, ex-cons, a lot of 'em, they're never gonna get it. They're going down again and they don't care who they take with 'em."

McCormick's hand had stopped just short of the corner of the desk. His face looked rigid again, as though he was trying hard not to say something he might regret. It came out anyway.

"Those _guys_, some of 'em, anyway, are my friends. You think I can just walk away from all of that—all of them?"

"You have other friends."

"Not many, not anymore. Where the hell do you think I've been the last couple of years? _Camp_." Mark shook his head in disgust.

"From before that—"

"Hah. Well, it might surprise you how many people just kind of get out of touch with you when you're doing time, and then, hell, when you get out it's awkward all around—'How ya been? Whatcha been doing?'" McCormick grimaced. "'Bout the only one who stood by me was Flip."

"And Barbara," Hardcastle added cautiously.

"Well," Mark shrugged pensively, "yeah." He frowned for a moment and added, "But even Barb knew who to come to when she wanted Flip's car 'repossessed' . . ."

His voice had trailed off, as though that aspect of it had only just occurred to him, something Hardcastle had wondered about right from the start—the casual way that Barb Johnson had used the ex-con—and the equally casual way McCormick had allowed it.

"But," Mark added, after only the slightest hesitation, as if he'd reached the same question himself and felt he needed to answer it, "I owed Flip a lot . . . everything. He'd already helped me put my life together once, and he was going to do it again." His face went grim. "But now he's gone." He looked around slowly, as though he'd lost track of things for a moment, caught up in a miasma of regret.

He shook his head once more and picked up the shears. "And I've got bushes to trim." He was on his feet and turning to go. Hardcastle leaned forward a little, one of those rare moments where he wasn't sure exactly what to say. Didn't matter, though; Mark looked back over his shoulder with the briefest of nods and said, "I'll try. That's all I can promise."

And then he was up the steps and through the door again before the judge could even reply.

00000

He watched him for a while after that—the bushes got pruned, the lawn got mowed. Normality had returned so quickly and completely that it was, as far as Hardcastle was concerned, only a clearer indication of just how good the younger man was at being whatever he needed to be in order to survive. _But that cuts both ways_. _If he can do it for me, he can do it for anybody._

He pushed that worrying notion to the side, at least temporarily, and days passed into a week before it reared itself again.

Frank called this time, asking nicely if he'd be free after lunch and, by the way, would McCormick be there as well?—which meant, taken all together, that he wanted something, and he must have thought it was going to be a tough sell, requiring a face-to-face request and a little persuasion.

The judge frowned at the receiver, but kept that out of his reply—after the previous week, Mark needed all the credit he could get from the authorities. And, besides, the kid was pretty good at those little undercover projects, had an unexpected flair for acting—_deception, you mean_. The nagging thought had intruded, unbidden, almost before he'd agreed to the meeting.

After that he'd hung up, and swiveled his chair around, observing the man in question, looking more-or-less innocent as he worked with plodding inefficiency at weeding a flower bed. He briefly pondered informing McCormick of the slated visit, but just as quickly concluded that Mark was no dummy; he'd see it for what it was. Who needed a morning of low-grade muttering and grumbling?

00000

The doorbell rang, but Mark hadn't even had time to put down the dish towel before Hardcastle had apparently answered it. The sound of Frank's voice, after a week's absence, provoked a twitch of guilty mental review, followed, just as quickly, by a jolt of self-disgust. _How the hell could you have done something wrong— you've barely left the estate since the last time he was here._

He supposed the authorities—the ones that weren't Hardcastle—might have finally decided to have him hauled in for a little talk, but if that were the case, he would have thought a black-and-white would have been the order of the day.

He folded the towel casually and dropped it over the rack, taking a deep breath and then deciding not to wait to be summoned. He would make an appearance, get it over with, and, if it had nothing to do with him, be dismissed.

But both men, already sitting down, looked up at him expectantly as soon as he came into the doorway of the den. There wasn't any visible hostility on Frank's part, and the judge merely looked curious, as though the lieutenant hadn't gotten to the point of the visit yet. He was gestured in, though, and not in a way that suggested he was going to be told which flower beds needed weeding next.

He sat, nodded his greeting at Harper, and ventured a cautious, "What's up?"

"Lester Strunk—the tapes," Harper said abruptly, grimacing just slightly, and then, seeming to catch Mark's sudden pallor, pushed ahead with an equally quick reassurance—"Oh, no, they're not after you, I mean, not as an accessory. I convinced 'em you just wandered into it, running an errand for Milt."

Mark cast a quick glance in Hardcastle's direction, and was just as quickly convinced that the older man was also hearing this for the first time.

"But," Frank continued, a little less reassurance in his tone, "I think that got somebody thinking. First they were all over it, asking me if you had something going on this one, Milt." Harper had turned his face back to Hardcastle. "I told them all you were looking for was used parts."

Hardcastle grunted. Mark thought he looked tense.

"Yeah, well, they took a little convincing. And a couple of 'em think we oughta attach one of those radio tracking devices to you, on account of you're so good at finding trouble."

"That was him, not_ me_." Hardcastle nodded pointedly in Mark's direction.

"Okay, _two_ tracking devices," Frank said lightly, but there was something in his expression that seemed to suggest he was stalling. Mark sat back a little, waiting to be unpleasantly surprised. "And, anyway," Harper uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, as though the next part was the crux of it, "like I said, they got to thinking, and some of them are wondering if they can't do something with this little coincidence."

"Like what?" Mark asked suspiciously.

"Like maybe send you back in there, this time with a wire. Might be pretty easy, after all they were the ones who issued the invitation."

"But they've already got tapes—"

"Of your guy, yes—"

"He's not _my_ guy. I hardly know him. An acquaintance, ya know."

"Okay, _Lester_," Frank shrugged, "they've got him on tape, and not being as coy as he was when you talked to him—"

"_He_ talked to me," Mark corrected carefully.

Another shrug. "Yeah, well, they got him, but you know how it is with one of these task forces; they're always hoping for a bigger fish."

"So they need some bait. Throw me in there and shake things up a little, huh?"

"A wire, Mark, that's what they're asking for, and somebody who's got some street credibility—someone they might feel comfortable talking around."

"A narc, an informant."

"You said you hardly knew this guy," Harper protested. "An acquaintance."

Mark sank back into his seat, then spared a sharp glance at the judge, who was unusually quiet. All he got from that direction was a grim look.

"Your call," Hardcastle said flatly.

Mark tried to cover his surprise. Then, after a moment, he turned back to the lieutenant. "What happens if I say no dice? Then they come after me?"

"There's nothing for them to find, is there?" Frank replied dryly. "But they might rattle your cage a little, just because they can. I suppose they could take it to the parole board, let them review your situation."

Mark started to speak, but Hardcastle overrode it.

"I can handle the parole board."

Mark frowned. "Judge," he said, "nobody 'handles' the parole board. They do what they damn well please. I think they have some sort of quota or something."

"They can't pull your ticket based on hearsay."

"Well, probably not," Harper interrupted and Mark winced at the casual way he'd hedged it, "but they might yank _yours_, Milt."

Hardcastle's eyebrows went up.

"I mean, they might decide to pull the plug on your little experiment. I hear you've got some guys down there that aren't too keen on it in the first place."

Mark cast a questioning look at the judge.

"Aw," Hardcastle gave that a wave of his hand, "it's the old territorial imperative, you know. Don't want to set a precedent."

"Judges taking home ex-cons?" McCormick asked in irritated disbelief. "And, anyhow, it's not like they're gonna run out. We've got you outnumbered."

There was a short, explosive laugh from Frank, for which Mark was grateful. He was hoping for more distraction than that, something to cover the connection between what Harper had just said, and his agreeing to do this job.

Didn't matter, he supposed. Hardcastle would figure it out anyway. And the truth was, he didn't want the parole board nosing into things. Two months ago he might have, but not anymore, though he could honestly say he wasn't sure when that had changed.

He sighed. He did his very best version of sorely-tried and unfairly put-upon, turning 'okay' nearly into two words. That part, at least, wasn't feigned. Then he lied through his teeth about his motivation. "I'd better do it. They won't stop at rattling; they'll go straight for the jugular. You guys have just never been on the receiving end. If I don't do this, I'll be back eating the lumpy mashed potatoes again."

Hardcastle looked as if he had been about to launch into an argument and then, just as abruptly, had decided to hold his peace. Frank gave them both a good hard stare, as though he was working through the whole thing a lot faster than Mark would have thought possible.

_You've lost your touch._

Didn't matter, though, everybody seemed willing to pretend that his reasons were as stated. Hardcastle, looking almost as reluctant as Mark himself felt, turned back to Frank.

"Details, I want 'em."

Mark wanted them, too, but the judge's vehemence took him by surprise. It must've startled Frank as well. The lieutenant sat there for a moment, then said, "I'm just the messenger, Milt. I think maybe you oughta have a meeting with the guys in charge of this. You can lay out some ground rules."

Mark thought it was interesting that Frank was still addressing Hardcastle. Maybe 'disturbing' was the better word. He joked about being a slave, but didn't much like it when he was treated like property.

"Do I get any say in it?"

Both men looked toward him, startled, and, only a split-second later, Hardcastle answered gruffly, "Yeah, you already did. You said 'yes'."

Frank winced. Mark just sat there, absorbing it. Then he stood up, wordlessly, shook his head once in disbelief, and left.

00000

The silence lingered on for a moment, finally broken by Frank.

"You were a little hard on him, don't ya think?"

The judge sat there, still scowling.

"I mean," Frank continued thoughtfully, "I think he just agreed to do it because—"

"Never mind that," Hardcastle interrupted gruffly. "Somebody has to be in charge around here. I'm responsible for him."

"It's an undercover job; he's done 'em before."

Hardcastle's scowl deepened.

"Well, I'll admit that thing with Gray and Filapiano didn't—"

"You're damn straight," the judge snapped.

Frank sat, waiting out the silence this time.

"Look," Hardcastle said, edging in on the matter at hand, "maybe he would be better off back with Dalem."

"Maybe," Frank agreed quietly. "Or maybe he'd get into some kinda trouble on his own, or maybe the parole board won't even give him the chance, maybe he _will_ get his ticket pulled—nobody can promise him he wouldn't, once they got a hold of this. Anyway," he sighed, and then managed a quick, slightly worried grin, "looks like he's already made up his mind for you. I think you're stuck with this one."

Hardcastle nodded glumly. "The details," he said again, "I want 'em all. And if I don't like what I hear, that's it. I'll take him back to Dalem myself, if I have to."

00000

From where he knelt in the flower bed, aggressively weeding the innocent begonias, Mark heard the sounds of Frank's departure. He didn't bother to get up. He'd stopped muttering a few moments back and had now lapsed into angry silence.

Some separate part of him was calculating the direction of his disgust, and found a surprisingly large part of it directed at himself. _You put up with it._

_I have no choice. Hardcase or hard time._

_That's nonsense. You __like__ being Tonto. You're nuts._

He shook his head once, though he wasn't sure if it was more disgust, or one last attempt at denying an unfortunate truth. With his head down, and his back to the house, he heard nothing more until Hardcastle's pointed throat-clearing startled him. The man was only a few feet behind him.

Mark managed not to jump at the sound. He lifted his head, frowned, looked over his shoulder, and muttered, "What now?"

The judge jerked one thumb toward the front door. "If you're done mangling the flowers, we oughta talk."

_Not enough that you agreed to do it. Now he'll make you say why. _He already suspected the other man understood exactly what had happened a few minutes ago in the den—not much got past Hardcastle, but somehow Mark felt the final indignity of confessing it out loud—_admitting_ to it—was entirely beyond him.

He brushed his hands off on his jeans as he stood. Time for an offensive, he figured.

"I though we were done talking. I said 'yes'. Now that's not enough?" It had come out bitter. It _felt_ bitter.

Surprisingly, Hardcastle held his peace. So much for escaping again under cover of a barrage. Mark tried a change of strategy.

"Look," he sighed, "I don't want to talk; I just want to get it done. After this I promise, the next time I see a guy I knew from the joint, I'll cross the street and keep my eyes down. Not even a 'Hi.' Okay?"

It looked like the judge wasn't buying any of it, but maybe he was tired of talking, too. All Mark got in return was a doubtful 'hmmph'.

"So, when do we do it?" McCormick asked wearily.

He got a long, studying look from the judge. "We'll meet with the task force guys tomorrow. After that . . ." Hardcastle made a palm up gesture with one hand. He might have been throwing something away, "They'll decide."

00000

There were three of them, and Frank had done the introductions perfunctorily. Detective Pinford, LAPD, and two guys from the state police, Trowly and Pruitt. There weren't a lot of warm, collegial handshakes to go around Mark noticed—just a nod from Hardcastle, before he took a seat at the conference table. It had the feeling of a preliminary hearing in front of an unreceptive judge.

McCormick felt a little heartened by this. They hadn't had much to say to each other so far this morning, but he didn't feel completely abandoned—at least he still had disapproval to hang onto.

Pinford outlined the case. It was pretty sketchy thus far, Mark thought, just a whole lot of Lester talking big on the phone to guys who weren't saying much back.

"But he is moving cars through there. A few, not as many as he'd like to," Pinford said. "And the operation above that looks pretty slick. They just disappear." He snapped his fingers. "Maybe overseas. Too slick for Strunk to be more than just a small part of it. He's only a feeder. There's a river downstream from him."

"Strunk knows McCormick works for me," the judge objected. "What makes you think anybody will trust him?"

Pinford shrugged. "Lester already made it pretty clear to his higher-ups; your guy said he was scamming you. Lester bought it." The detective smiled thinly "And the word's gotten out about that Beal guy you had around earlier this year."

Mark tried not to slump any lower in his seat than he already had. He didn't risk a sideward look in Hardcastle's direction.

"Then maybe," there was something in the judge's tone that caught Mark's ear; it was solid, unperturbed, absolutely unembarrassed, "they also got the word that McCormick helped take down Beal."

Pinford shrugged again. "Deep cover."

"Pretty damn deep," Frank cut in, sounding a little irritated at the unspoken implication. Mark couldn't help a sharp, surprised look in his direction. He hadn't thought he had any cheering squad in the LAPD, not even Harper.

Hardcastle ignored the digression. He started in with the obvious questions, and then, having a grasp of the layout, branched off into the details—the wire, the back-up, who'd be involved.

Mark settled back again. There were things being asked that hadn't even occurred to him, and he had a slow, dawning notion that Hardcastle's usual apparent impulsiveness belied a lot of internal planning and forethought.

But, right from the start, there was a hint of impatience on Pinford's side. Somewhere in the third round of questions he hauled up short and asked outright exactly where Hardcastle thought he fit into this.

"I'm his parole officer," the judge said flatly.

"That wasn't _exactly_ my impression," Pinford replied. "Though I haven't taken it up with the parole board directly . . . yet."

Mark closed his eyes briefly, took a breath, and silently willed Hardcastle to play nice.

"Not necessary," the judge said, after a long, tense moment. "Anyway, I'm sure the board would sanction any _uncoerced _cooperation of a parolee in an authorized police operation," he added, with a hint of sarcasm.

"I said I'd do it," Mark said quickly, trying to bring the standoff to a close. "Tomorrow, you said. Fine. Where?"

It was all done that quickly, the final arrangements agreed upon. Hardcastle seemed to have called it quits. At least they got up and left together. Even this had seemed doubtful for a moment. Mark realized what he'd heard the judge voicing had been concern, pure and simple, and now he'd gone and pulled the rug out from under even that. He had a moment's vague notion that he might be bumming a ride from Frank.

Outside, the tension remained. He lagged back a little on the way to the truck, climbing into the passenger side almost reluctantly. It was Hardcastle who finally broke the silence.

"It's not too late to call it off."

"It is and you know it," Mark said with grim finality.

"Listen," the judge pinched the bridge of his nose, "these guys are looking to score. They don't give two hoots what happens to you. I have half a mind to—"

"How is that so different from usual?" Mark interrupted bluntly.

He'd thrown it out there, trying to derail Hardcastle's idea before it could even be spoken. Now he sat stiffly, hoping he hadn't gone too far.

A long, tense silence, and then he heard the judge let out a breath that ended with a grunt of acquiescence. "I s'pose you'd see it that way." The words were cold and hard, and no less blunt than McCormick's had been.

Mark fought down the urge to take it all back, to apologize, to explain. He knew full well that it would only take them right back round to the place where they'd been a few moments earlier, and the next stop Hardcastle made would be John Dalem's office. This way at least he had a fighting chance—just get through the next few days, and then try to put it back together again. He only hoped there was something left to reassemble once it was all over.

00000

_The truth hurts_. Hardcastle supposed it was no more than he deserved, though he had a notion that McCormick's motives weren't entirely driven by anger.

_But_ _it's still true. You don't always pay attention to the consequences, either._

Without another word, he started the truck and pulled out of the space. The man beside him was noticeably rigid, as though he was readying himself for a blow. It wasn't until Hardcastle had passed the obvious turn-off that would have taken them to the parole board's offices that he felt Mark's tension diminish by a small degree.

And somehow the knowledge that he'd been right—at least about that much of the younger man's motives—offered the judge no comfort at all.

00000

Most of all, Mark hated going into this with things still unsettled. A silent afternoon of practiced avoidance, a dinner eaten around only the most perfunctory communication, an early but sleepless night, and now he was being handed back to the task force, with Hardcastle's face unreadable.

Frank wasn't even there, and somehow the balance of power seemed to have shifted. Pinford was in charge and it was evident that he would be calling all the shots. The first item on his agenda was dismissing the judge.

"You can wait here."

'Here' was the command center, a hastily requisitioned conference room in a county building not far from the salvage yard. Pinford's expression made it clear that he thought he was doing everyone a favor. He gestured McCormick toward the phone. "Keep it simple. You're interested in his offer. You've got a piece to bring in right now. A Beemer."

"What year? What model?"

Pinford looked annoyed. Mark shrugged. "He'll wanna know."

Pruitt broke in, "'83, it's an E28."

Mark gave that a thoughtful nod. "Any idea where I picked up this piece of merchandise?"

"Why the hell—?"

"Because if I get caught lying the whole thing caves in. It's the details. Get it?" Mark said impatiently.

Trowly was consulting a file, "Orange County. Here," he said flipping it closed and passing it over. Mark spent a few moments skimming, as though he was reading for a part, then he closed it, pushed it gently away, and reached for the phone.

He reached Strunk on the first try. He didn't have to work too hard at the slight nervous edge, like a man who had a lot at stake and couldn't afford a screw up. Lester sounded uneasy himself, but not surprised to be hearing back from him. He seemed almost reluctant for a meet, not the words, but the tone.

Mark puzzled as he hung up the phone. Pinford, who'd been listening in on the line, looked satisfied.

"Okay," he hung up the other receiver, "we're a go for this afternoon. We've got to get set up."

Mark nodded, and glanced over at the judge, who was frowning.

"Lester sounded iffy," McCormick said, more to him than to anyone else.

"He won't be too worried," Pinford interjected sharply. "Everybody's a jailhouse lawyer these days. They all know about entrapment. You making the first move should put 'em all off their guard." He shot a quick glance at his watch. "We'd better get going. You got some things to cover."

Mark nodded again. Hardcastle still hadn't said anything, but now he was rising slowly, as if he meant to accompany them. Pinford gave him a thin smile and said, "Here means here."

"It's just a preliminary meet, Hardcase," Mark said quietly. The nickname had come out almost in counterpoint to his earnestness. "I'll just unload the car and maybe make some new friends—be back before you know it."

There was a grunt of doubt from the older man, but he sat back down again and Mark let himself be ushered from the room.

00000

The kid was right. It really was just the first stage, and the bad guys could hardly be alarmed. And if things did go to hell in a hand-basket, well, there'd be the wire, and the surveillance team. And nobody'd be able to say McCormick hadn't given it his best shot.

Hardcastle took his dismissal with as much grace as he could muster—a mere scowl as the others departed. He even managed to forego all parting words of advice to McCormick. He really wasn't in the mood for a smart rejoinder, and it wasn't like Mark was in need of much coaching when it came to scams.

He smothered a slight smile at this, the first one he'd felt coming over him in a day or so. He coaxed himself into a more positive frame of mind with limited success. They'd get through the next few days, and then they'd settle back into the routine.

Everything would be fine.

But damned if he'd sit here, like someone left out in the waiting room. As soon as the others had departed, he got to his feet again. He'd been wondering why Frank hadn't put in an appearance, not that this was his show, but he tended to take an interest in things pertaining to McCormick and, after all, he had been the go-between on this one.

He thought he'd go find a phone.

00000

The BMW had all the bells and whistles, and practically no mileage. Most likely the by-product of a drug bust, Mark thought. He was relieved to finally get into it, after a short, somewhat tense interval with Pinford and his colleagues. He'd been glad Hardcastle hadn't been there for that part; at the very least there would have been some 'I told you so's' later on, and he never would have gotten half the concessions he'd achieved.

At least they'd agreed on the wire—wearing one to a first meet would be dangerous, and, even if it escaped detection, hardly likely to produce anything useful. The surveillance had been more of a negotiating issue. He'd pointed out that the LAPD wasn't kidding when they called them 'unmarked cars'—the lack of chrome on their fleet vehicles was, by itself, a dead giveaway.

If they brought that thing within a half mile of the salvage yard, the jig would be up. Not that there was much cover, or any reasonable reason to be just sitting out there. Trowly and Pruitt protested, but Pinford, for once, seemed to see the logic of it, and gave in after only a short argument.

But this time, driving up to the entrance of Waterman's salvage yard, it didn't have the feel of a holiday at all.

00000

Harper wasn't exactly elusive, but it took a couple of phone calls to track him down. When Hardcastle finally did reach him, the lieutenant seemed mildly surprised to hear where he was calling from.

"I thought it was off for today. Trowly called me earlier—said they were having some kinda problem with the bugs, might want to check it out first."

"What kinda problem?" Hardcastle asked, tightening his grip on the receiver. "And how come nobody told _me_?"

"Must have just been a glitch." Harper spoke quietly, but there was an edge of doubt to it. "And I thought they would've called you first. Must've been nothing . . .Milt, I would've been down there to see him off."

That, and to make sure all the t's were crossed and the i's were dotted, Hardcastle had no doubt. Too late for that. _Just a glitch_ he reassured himself, but somehow he wasn't much reassured.

Harper wasn't either, apparently. "You're at the staging area?"

"Yeah, they left maybe twenty minutes ago."

"Sit tight; I'll figure out where they're at." This was a thinly-veiled admonition. "I'll let you know as soon as I've got some answers."

As if he had to be told to not go off in a huff and maybe blunder into the middle of it. Hardcastle harrumphed. But after he'd hung the phone up, he had to beat down an urge to do just that, though he'd been kept at enough distance that he didn't even know where the backup was stationed.

_They'd been awfully insistent about that this morning—keeping him at a distance. Pinford had, at any rate._

00000

Lester met him outside, giving him and the car the once-over. "Nice," he said, glancing inside at the neatly-done hot-wiring. "You've still got the touch, huh?"

There was something not quite right in the way he said it, and Mark had one last fleeting urge to call it off, though he firmly believed it had been too late for that even yesterday, let alone now.

Lester gestured toward the Quonset hut. "We got some business to discuss."

There it was again, off a half-tone. Not hostile as much as . . . _just not right_.

He followed the other man to the door, and stepped inside when he opened it. The guy behind the desk was most likely not Waterman, not that guys in the salvage business couldn't wear sharp suits and shark-like countenances, but this one didn't fit in here—had the air of merely passing through. _Like a storm._

"This is him?" the man sneered.

Mark had a feeling of bulk behind him—the guy who'd been standing beside the door moving up, elbowing Lester aside even before Strunk had said, "Yeah, McCormick. I knew him from Clarkville, honest. He was an okay guy."

Mark didn't like the use of the past tense. He let out a slow breath. No one had pulled out a gun yet, but this had the air of extreme prejudice. He said, pretty calmly he thought, "What's up, Lester?"

The big guy caught him a sharp, almost surprising blow behind the ear, but the next two were kicks on the way down—he was apparently a professional, he knew enough to save his hands.

From his new perspective on the floor, trying to catch his breath against the waves of pain, he saw the guy in the suit step out from behind the desk, dangling a small object from a short length of wire. He muttered, "Mr. Doyle is pissed. How long you think they were onto you, Strunk? And you letting 'em in the front door."

He walked past McCormick but didn't even bother to get in a kick of his own, just a snap of the fingers that was a signal to the bigger guy. Mark felt himself hauled up by the shirt collar. He brought his elbow back sharply and tried to pivot—big mistake on the timing, he wasn't together enough yet. He got a small 'oof' out of the guy, but the grip didn't even loosen.

_No wire_, he thought regretfully, with three witnesses who would agree that it'd been his idea.

And that was the last coherent thought he had for a while.

00000

Harper arrived after an interval short enough to imply lights and sirens at least part of the way; that, and a pretty quick check on the whereabouts of the backup car.

"They said everything's going smoothly. Mark's in and they're on scene. He wanted some space and they're giving it to him."

"How _much _space?" Hardcastle said suspiciously. "And what was the damn glitch nobody told me about?"

"Turns out they had a bug, the salvage yard office. They'd gotten permission from the owner a couple days ago for it. Apparently they lost transmission this morning. Happens sometimes. Glitches. Nothing unusual on the taps, they said."

"Strunk found it."

"Not necessarily," Harper said.

"I want to talk to Pinford."

"By radio?"

"No, in person. You said they're giving him some space, right? Then we oughta be able to get in by them without raising the alarm. We'll take my truck; nobody'll figure _that_ for a surveillance vehicle."

He was already heading for the door. Frank didn't seem in the mood to object, which worried Hardcastle even more. "Whose decision was it to go ahead, glitch or no glitch?" he asked icily.

"Not sure," Frank said quietly. "Kinda sounded like a consensus thing but . . ."

"I think Pinford is the ramrod here," Hardcastle finished for him.

He got a nod from the lieutenant. "Yeah, kinda seems that way. He wants this, wants it bad. You know how that goes."

Unfortunately, Hardcastle did.

00000

As trunks went, it was roomy. And the suspension wasn't too bad, not that it helped much; he still hurt all over. He suspected it was the Beemer, though it was too dark to make an exact identification, and the part between the big guy getting even for the elbow, and waking up in here, was mercifully blank.

Handcuffs. He took a solemn vow that if he got out of this mess he would never leave his picks at home again.

00000

_Space, but this was ridiculous._ The surveillance car had been parked a good quarter-mile from the entrance to the salvage yard, and it was just the one vehicle, as far as he could tell. Hardcastle pulled in behind them, seething. Frank looked just as obviously disgusted.

A conference on the open road was to be avoided. Hardcastle said, 'stay put', and got out to walk forward. Harper ignored him, getting out and going up as well. A belligerent look from Pinford, in the driver's seat, and a moment's hesitation before the back door on the van opened and they were allowed in.

Trowly and Pruitt looked ill-at-ease but Pinford moved sideways in his seat and shot the newcomers an angry look. "I thought I told you—"

"The hell with that. What's going on in there?" the judge overrode him impatiently.

"Nothing . . . the meet. That's all," Pinford said with a vague gesture of his hand.

"It's just the preliminaries," Trowly added nervously.

It was in the brief silence that followed this that Hardcastle became aware of the sound that was missing. His scowl deepened. "You sent him in without a_wire_?"

"His choice," Pinford growled.

"His _idea,_" Pruitt seconded hastily.

"You're in_charge_," the judge fumed.

"Milt," Harper put out a hand, palm down on his sleeve, "A set-up meeting like this, the kid might be right, and you had any luck making him wear one on when he doesn't want to?"

Pinford looked vindicated.

They might have been talking about a keeping a pair of galoshes on a recalcitrant school kid, Hardcastle thought, nothing more serious.

"I'm going in there."

"The hell you are," Pinford objected.

"I got a truck," Hardcastle jerked one thumb back toward his vehicle. "Kinda old, needs fixing up. I'm a _customer_. This Lester guy doesn't know me."

"You'll hash it," Pinford hissed. Even Frank looked concerned.

"If they're standing there, doing business, I'll look around for a while, and leave—tell him he doesn't have what I'm looking for. No problem."

"I say no." Pinford again. "He wanted some space."

"It's been, what?" Hardcastle checked his watch. "At least half an hour—more maybe. Enough space. I'm going in. You want to bust me for interfering with a police investigation?"

Pinford looked like he was considering it, then backed off and said, very quietly, "The parole board—"

"Screw 'em," the judge shot back harshly. "I'm goin' in there."

00000

He'd thought through, and rejected, several plans on the way to wherever they were going. He had one vague hope that they were being, even now, tailed by Pinford and company, that maybe they wanted to see where things would end up.

_A shallow grave, most likely._

Seemed as though his destiny had been pointing in that direction for a few weeks now. If so, what was with the beating? Practice, maybe, or some sort of object lesson, though it looked as though Lester had been the only pupil. And how had they known that Lester had been made? There'd been a bug in the office, not just a tap on the line—something Pinford hadn't mentioned. And it couldn't have been there when he first visited, or they would've had more than hearsay to damn him with.

_And the bug had been found—but the guys listening in must've known that._

He supposed it might be only the paranoia of pain, but he had the distinct feeling he'd been set up.

00000

There'd been no further protests from Pinford. Harper hadn't joined the judge back in the truck; maybe he'd stayed behind to unruffle some feathers and keep a lid on things in the van. He was welcome to it, Hardcastle thought; he was done playing games with these idiots.

He pulled in slowly, noting that the other vehicle was out of sight from his rearview mirror almost as soon as he'd made the turn up the drive. He saw a Quonset hut; everything appeared deserted, no BMW in sight.

He climbed down out of the truck and made a quick survey. It was a big yard, lots of pathways, but mostly clear sightlines off to a higher mound of junkers toward the back. No movement, no sound. He knocked firmly on the door of the office, no answer.

He swallowed down an increasingly bad feeling. He figured Frank would say McCormick had probably gotten a leg up on it already, gone off to deal the deal, nothing more than that. He'd be back in a few hours with names and addresses and a big grin on his face, 'cause the truth of it is, he likes walking on the edge.

He hoped to God that Harper would be right.

00000

The good news was they hadn't wound up in some lonely patch of desert. Though that might only have been because they didn't have a shovel and a bag of lye, he supposed—that and it was broad daylight.

The bad news was they hadn't bothered to blindfold him back at the junkyard. He'd seen their faces, and now yet another place, if only from the inside—a garage. He figured it was one of their chop shops—car parts scattered about. He'd only had a momentary look as he was hauled out of the trunk.

Standing had become problematic, between the beating and the cramped transportation, but the big guy had managed to drag him into a smaller room at the back. This one was hardly larger than a walk-in closet, no windows either.

Even though he didn't have any fight left in him, they weren't taking any chances. The professional-grade handcuffs they'd used on him back at the salvage yard were attached to a sturdy piece of pipe that ran along the wall a few inches off the floor. No further words were exchanged, just a couple more kicks for good luck. Then the door closed, plunging the place into darkness.

Only temporary, he realized. There was light from a crack under the door and his eyes, at least the one that was still fractionally open, gradually adjusted. He got his breath back; he thought that last impact had done some further rib damage. _Shallow, shallow. Don't cough. _The floor was nice and cool. He pondered. He took stock.

_They're gonna kill you. It's only a matter of time._

00000

Harper had said exactly what the judge had figured he would, but there was nothing in the expression on his face that made Hardcastle think the man believed what he was saying. The other men had fanned out, covering the place, and confirmed what the judge had instantly known was true.

"He's gone; so's the car," Pinford said. He hadn't added 'No wonder he didn't want a wire,' but still managed to make it sound like an accusation.

Hardcastle gave him a withering look. Pinford didn't seem too perturbed, even though he had to know the slip-up would cast back on him. The detective had given Trowly the nod, and the other man was putting in calls for back-up. Again the judge had the impression that Pinford was the guy unofficially steering this boat, and that the chain of events didn't entirely displease him.

He listened to the APB being put out—McCormick's description, with Strunk's added only as an afterthought, and the BMW described. He glanced down at his watch. The clock was running, most literally, and there'd already been enough time for them to have gone to ground. If that ABP didn't produce something in the next thirty minutes, it would produce nothing at all.

00000

It was a very short inventory. They'd obviously patted him down sometime between the beating and the trunk. They had his wallet and keys. Thank God there'd been no wire . . . on the other hand, through vague impressions and obscure reasoning that he wouldn't want to have to defend out loud, he'd already settled on Pinford as his nemesis.

So what would have happened if he'd insisted on a wire? Would Pinford have obliged him? He supposed either way he'd been pretty much cooked.

He laid his head gently back against the wall, trying to avoid any of the sore spots. He let his eye drift slowly shut. He hoped that argument would work with Hardcastle, and then he realized, with a very slight pang of almost detached regret, that it really wasn't going to be his problem.

00000

He was torn between making his own inquiries, and a need to stick around and see what the official investigation would produce. After more than three hours, that had been exactly nothing, and he'd had no success diverting them from a presumption of guilt.

He finally reached his breaking point around mid-afternoon, dragging Frank away from yet another clutch of officers and hauling him off to the side.

"Even at the speed limit, that car could be out of state by now," he muttered harshly, "and you know sure as hell that McCormick isn't the one behind the wheel."

Harper gave this a sober nod. "They're being thorough, Milt. You know this stuff takes time."

"They think he took the damn car. _Pinford_ convinced 'em of that—and they aren't even considering any other possibilities."

"Well, you gotta admit Mark made it look pretty, ah . . ." The lieutenant hauled back on whatever he'd been about to say at a glower from Hardcastle. "I didn't say _I_ believed it, Milt, but we got a decent chunk of local law enforcement working on this. I'm not sure what else can be done."

"We're going at it from the wrong end," Hardcastle dropped his voice further and steered the other man into the hall. "What I want to know about is Pinford."

Harper was giving him a look of forbearance. "Look, Milt," he finally said, "I don't think Mark ran off with the damn car, but that doesn't mean _Pinford_ set him up."

"No," Hardcastle looked past his shoulder and back into the room, full of busy and seemingly pointless activity, "might have been Trowly or Pruitt, I suppose, maybe even all three, but my money's on Pinford."

The forbearance looked like it was wearing a little thin. Frank added, with tight exasperation, "What I _meant_ was, it doesn't _always_ have to be—"

"I _know_ what you meant, Frank," Hardcastle cut him off sharply. "Just get me what you can on the guy," he ran his fingers through his hair and then looked down at his watch again, "before it's too late to do any good," he muttered, more to himself.

00000

Mark had a notion that some time had passed, though he wasn't sure how much. He was thirsty, and starting to feel a chill that he didn't think had much to do with the temperature in his makeshift cell.

He'd been hearing familiar noises for a while now, voices—a couple of guys, some low-grade cussing at times—and the sounds of a car being stripped and dismantled. _Waste not, want not._ He supposed they would rather have sold off a late model BMW as a unit, but this one was more than a little hot, so probably best to dispose of the identifiable parts and only salvage the remainder.

_First they'll deal with the car, then they'll deal with you._ He wondered how long anyone would keep looking for him. Indefinitely, he supposed, if a warrant got issued, but eventually it would only be in an indolent, one-more-name-on-a-list sort of way. And, from the sounds of it, these guys were very thorough, very efficient.

_He'll never know; he'll never be sure._

Mark wished he'd said outright why he'd agreed to do this job, though he was pretty sure Hardcastle had figured that out. Still, he wished.

All that activity in the next room, a little more light from under the door, the sense of time going by—slipping though his fingers. He felt like he needed to _do_ something. He started feeling around. Drywall behind him, casually applied and unfinished from the texture of it, he explored the surface with his free hand. Something, anything, to use on the handcuffs.

He found the head of a screw protruding very slightly, just barely enough room for purchase. Pointless, he supposed, but a way to pass the time.

00000

Frank had gone off to pursue Hardcastle's suspicions. The judge went back to the salvage yard, where a team of technicians was still poking around, looking fairly unmotivated. He knew one of them, just in passing, the younger brother of a Wilshire District captain.

"Marty?"

The man had been standing, otherwise unoccupied. He gave a quick nod. "Hey, Judge. How's it goin'? You in on this?"

"Helping out a bit," Hardcastle replied vaguely. The other man didn't seem surprised. "Find anything?"

"Naw, it's gone."

"The bug?"

"Yeah, s'pose to retrieve it. Somebody got to it first."

"You put it in?"

Marty nodded, looking a little unhappy. "And when I put 'em, they stay put. You know that, right?"

"Yeah, I heard you're good. When did this one get installed?"

"Just a couple days ago. They got a warrant based on some taps."

"Wonder why they waited so long," Hardcastle speculated idly. "I mean, the tap started a couple weeks back."

Marty shrugged. "Not my department. They say put 'em in, I put 'em in." He sighed. "And then they _stay_ put," he added in a muttered tone.

Hardcastle tried for a sympathetic expression. "Find anything else interesting?"

"The lab guys were all over some stains in there. Blood."

The judge worked hard at trying to sound merely curious. "Much?"

"Nah, but you know how they are."

"Where?" He heard it coming out a little too sharp. He took a deep breath, though it felt like that was catching in his throat.

"Just inside the door, I think." Marty had jerked one thumb over his shoulder. "Hey, Cristoff."

Another man turned at the casual summons.

"Where'd ya find the blood?" Marty shouted.

Christoff strolled over in their direction, appearing pleased that anyone would take an interest. "Front wall, floor right below there, couple of hairs, too—brown, curly; might've been a scalp wound. Bagged 'em already."

"Thanks," Hardcastle said rigidly, trying not to raise any alarms. It was quiet, detached, very idle curiosity only, nothing that would make anyone comment on his presence or interest back at headquarters.

He strolled away, hands in his pockets, and climbed back into the truck. He waited until everyone was otherwise occupied before he pulled out slowly, and headed further into the yard, following the widest path. As he'd suspected, this route took him to a back entrance, which opened onto a paved road.

A few warehouses, everything quiet. No likely witnesses to the departure of the BMW earlier that day, no one who could tell him which way it had gone from there.

00000

It was an inch and a half long Phillips screw, and, though he fiddled with it for what seemed like an eternity, it simply couldn't be brought to bear on the pawl inside the keyhole. The angle of entry was too steep, and no amount of persuasion could change that. He kept trying, though, each time hoping for some temporary suspension of the laws of engineering.

It wasn't until his fingers were numb and swollen, that he finally called a halt to the operation, and that was when he noticed it had become dim and quiet in the room beyond his door. How long it had been so he couldn't tell.

He'd heard some louder noises while he'd been having a go at the cuffs. That must've been when they were loading up the larger parts, for sale or disposal. The men doing the dismantling must be long gone now. The silence was ominous.

He realized he was holding his breath, and let it out, slowly. If anyone had heard him moving around, they'd quite realistically concluded he could do no harm and left him to his little hobby.

He palmed the screw, gripping it so tightly that it hurt—a minor pain among all the others, but a sharp reflection of his pessimistic mood. He'd tried, he really had. He'd given it his best shot, right from the start, and it simply hadn't been enough. He hoped to hell that Hardcase would figure that out.

And then he heard the footsteps, approaching slowly, echoing in the now-empty outer room.

00000

Hardcastle had driven the back route from the salvage yard for a few miles, taking a quick side trip down every likely road. There were plenty of structures large enough to hold a vehicle, and nothing more to single out any one of them. It had been a long shot, he knew, but the urge to keep looking had driven him on until darkness forced him to pull over and acknowledge that it just wasn't working.

He sat there, parked alongside the road in the quiet, early night, wondering if it was already too late, _most likely_, and wondering if the kid would at least know he'd tried. _You hope . . . but small consolation that'd be to him._ He pinched the bridge of his nose and then shook his head once, sharply. It wasn't over until it was over; maybe Frank had dug something up.

He put the truck back in gear and turned it around.

00000

A shadow seen under the door, a hand upon it, and then the latch thrown—no key apparently involved there, and so all of his efforts with the handcuff lock had been in vain anyway. He stiffened as the door swung outward. He wasn't ready to die, but the alternative—getting kicked around some more—frightened him almost as much. He'd almost rather be decently dead, than be thrown in a grave half-conscious.

And all of this had passed through his mind in the space of a shallow breath and the door opening, before he heard the shadowy shape in the doorway say, in a tentative voice, "Skid?"

It was Lester, and tone was almost as solicitous as the question was absurd—unless, of course, the man was just wondering if he was still alive. He managed to say 'yeah', though it came out as a half-whispered croak, and he realized again how thirsty he was.

Strunk slipped inside and pulled the door shut behind him, an obvious act of concealment, though it wouldn't do much good; anyone passing by would see the latch was undone. The man crouched, staring at him in the dimness with what looked like concern.

"_Shit_, Skid."

Mark wasn't sure where Lester was going with this, though he supposed sympathy was a start. Lester eased back a little, after his brief inspection. He shook his head briefly and then looked off to the side a little.

"Look, man, I'm sorry."

Mark said nothing. The whole thing felt so fragile that any comment from him might bring it to a sharp and sensible halt. Lester's face, now half-turned to the light from under the doorway, was one of honest regret. He'd let out a sigh. Mark had to make a conscious effort to take a breath of his own.

"You didn't even remember me when you walked into the office that day, huh?"

He wasn't sure what the right answer was, so he shook his head. It was the truth.

"Yeah," Lester smiled ruefully, "that's what I figured." He paused, frowned, and then went on. "But I remembered you. You got me out of a jam one time."

Mark thought about this, drew a blank, and decided to keep his mouth shut.

"Probably wasn't nothin' for you, but Sal, he would've scragged me if I hadn't come up with the cash."

Mark thought this one through as well, and concluded it couldn't have been much of a loan, if he didn't even remember it, but he _did_ remember Sal, a guy who was vicious on general principle.

"I never got to pay you back. You got out a couple days later."

That explained it, then; he'd been riding that high.

"And, anyway," Lester shrugged, "you didn't put that crap in the office, did you?"

This time he managed another adamant croak. "_No_."

"Yeah, that's what I figured. And Hardcastle didn't send you there to nail me; you really was just lookin' for parts, huh?"

Mark figured that his nod was still close enough to pass for the truth.

Lester was down on his haunches. "They're gonna take you out to the desert. I heard 'em talking about Pico Rojo, one or two this morning. They're kinda tired." He looked like he was thinking hard. After a moment of this he reached across Mark for the cuff, lifted it a few inches, and let it go again. "I haven't got a key."

This time McCormick found his voice quick enough. "Don't need one. Really. Just look around out there, something metal." He described the specs. "Or, if you haven't got that, a pipe wrench'll do it," he added breathlessly, as Lester got to his feet.

Mark listened impatiently to the quiet puttering sounds, expecting any moment to have Lester's search interrupted by the burial party, but Strunk returned, crouching down again and putting his finds on the floor between them.

Mark picked up a long, heavy-gauge piece of wire, then got Strunk to fetch a pliers. The conversion took only a few seconds and the cuff was off a moment later.

He got up, stifling a groan and leaning against the wall until the head rush passed. Strunk looked at him dubiously and said, "Got no car. No keys to it, anyway. You're gonna have to hoof it."

"Yeah, well, we better get going."

He caught the frown Lester gave him. He frowned back, puzzled.

"Les, they're gonna figure _somebody_ busted me out."

Strunk pointed down to the makeshift tool.

"The _door_, Lester. How the hell did I open it from the inside? And the pliers, for crissake." He shook his head in disbelief. "You gotta come with me."

Strunk still stood there, a look of hardening resistance on his face. "You're gonna wanna go left, out there on the road. That's east. There's a gas station, maybe a mile or so. Probably closed but they got a phone." He reached into the pocket of his jeans, grabbed McCormick's better wrist, and stuffed some change into his hand. "There, we're even. Get going."

Mark looked at him in disbelief and finally said, "They'll kill you."

Strunk shook his head. "Nah, I'm pretty damn useful." He was smiling thinly, as if he hardly believed it himself. "Besides, only place I can run to now is back to prison." The smile was gone, replaced with a dead seriousness. "I'm not going back there."

"I know somebody who'd—"

"_Hardcastle_?" Lester cut him off. The smile was back—wry disbelief. "You're on the up-and-up, huh? I always thought you were a damn Boy Scout, you was just pretending to be a con." He shook his head.

"Go,_ get_," he said quietly, "before I figure out just how stupid I am."

Mark went.

00000

Hardcastle drove through the night. When he'd finally reached Frank, it had been by phone to his office. The conversation had been brief, and the impression was one of further information that needed to be relayed in person. He was clinging to the hope that Harper had shaken something loose.

The station was down to third shift staffing—fluorescent lights and Styrofoam cups of coffee, with the usual nocturnal detritus cluttering the downstairs hallway. He didn't bother with the elevator, taking the stairs up to Frank's floor two at a time.

No greeting smile. The news must not have been that good.

"No word?" he asked tightly.

Frank shook his head. "Nothing, no sightings even." He'd paused; he was fiddling with the pen on his desk.

Hardcastle had run out of patience. "Then what?" he finally barked.

"Coincidence, maybe." Frank looked up at him with an expression of painful disappointment. "Nothing that was in a file."

"_What_?"

"I didn't remember this; it's from way back. I guess you didn't even know it. Pinford—"

"I_ knew_ it," Hardcastle said with exasperation.

"No, I mean, he's clean, far as I can tell. But his dad, you know his dad was Louie Pinford, retired, what, maybe ten years ago? Died about a year after that."

Hardcastle shook his head.

"Okay, well, you didn't know him. That explains it. He was Filapiano's partner, back when they both worked gangs. I looked in the file, tried to figure out why his name didn't come out, with that case that was up in front of you. Best I can figure is that he was on sick leave then—injured, line-of-duty, a couple months earlier, before all the rest of it. Shot by a gang kid. Never came back after that. Disability leave, then he left the force."

All the facts, such as they were, left an awful lot of gray spaces in between. You could fill those in, Hardcastle supposed, with equal parts loyalty and vengeance.

"If Mark was gone," he said heavily, "gone _and_ discredited, maybe he thought that would soften the case against Filapiano?"

"Maybe," Frank said quietly, letting him hold to the 'if' for a while.

There was a long, silent pause, and the judge asked wearily, "Where does it end?"

Harper appeared to have no answer to that and, for once, Hardcastle didn't either, except that he knew it wouldn't end here. He wouldn't let it.

And then the phone rang.

00000

If it had been only a mile, then they measured these things differently out in the sticks. He'd been beginning to think maybe he'd gotten turned around somehow, but finally he saw the gas station. It was closed, but there was the promised phone just to the left of the garage door.

He lifted the receiver and listened gratefully to the dial tone, then dropped the quarter and dialed the estate without giving the alternatives much thought. The fifth unanswered ring, followed by the click and a familiar voice telling him there was no one there to answer the phone, caused a surprising jolt of disappointment. On second thought, though, he really didn't figure the judge was the type to go home and sit by the phone.

He left a message, trying to sound fairly together and not as desperate as he felt. Then he hung up, reassessed his change resources, and knitting his brows to try and remember Frank Harper's office phone.

00000

Frank reached for the phone, spoke a weary, harried 'hello', and a second later was sitting forward in his seat, saying, "Where the hell _are_ you?" in a way that left no question to whom he was speaking. "Wait," he said, more to Milt, who was reaching for the phone, but also to Mark, as he scrabbled for a piece of paper.

But Hardcastle wasn't waiting, and had the phone out of his hand before he got an answer.

"_McCormick_?"

The voice at the other end, familiar, but wearily rusty, sounded briefly confused. "I tried to call you. You're with Frank, huh?"

Hardcastle gave him a moment to regroup and then, when no more information was forthcoming, said, almost gently, "Listen, kiddo, we're gonna come get you. You just gotta tell us where you are."

That took some puzzling out, with more description than actual address. Hardcastle was finally satisfied; he even thought he had gone by the place that afternoon.

"Just stay put."

"They might come," Mark said a little anxiously. Which 'they' he'd meant was left vague. The judge was fairly certain it hadn't been mere confusion that had kept McCormick from dialing the police emergency number. He couldn't help but share the younger man's concerns.

"Okay, you sit tight around _back_, okay? We'll find you. You got that?" There'd been another pause and then, finally, a mumbled 'yes'. Then the phone was set down. It sounded like it had not quite made it to being hung up.

"I can have a squad there in a couple minutes," Frank suggested worriedly.

Hardcastle shook his head. "Not and be certain Pinford wouldn't hear about it first. He may still be pretty close by there. Anyway, if somebody comes up, lights and sirens, McCormick might panic, go running off. I said _we'd_ get him." He was already on his feet.

"All right, your way." Frank was up as well. "But we take my car."

00000

He'd laid the receiver down on the ledge below the phone, somehow not wanting to break the connection completely. Things were getting a little blurry with the eye that remained open, and all he really wanted to do was sit back down again somewhere where he wouldn't be spotted readily from the road.

A set of headlights half-blinded him. _Too soon to be any kind of good guys._ He froze against the side wall of the station, willing himself to invisibility. The car had pulled in. Someone opened a door and stepped out. He could see nothing more without turning his head, and he thought moving was a very bad idea—breathing, too, but there was a limit to how long he could go without doing that.

A quick string of invective from a still-familiar voice—the guy in the suit from that morning—then the door slammed again and the car pulled away with a hasty slew of gravel.

He slumped, and the momentum took him all the way to the ground.

00000

It would have been hard to find in the dark if he hadn't already traversed most of these roads only a few hours earlier. _You were so damn close._

"There, that's the one," Hardcastle said abruptly as the sign came into view.

Frank pulled in. The headlights of the sedan played across the darkened front of the building, reflecting off the glass in the repair bay doors—no movement. The phone was over to the side and the receiver still off the hook.

Below there, just around the corner, was someone huddled on the ground, a darker shape among the shadows. Frank cut the headlights almost as soon as they came to bear on the spot. They'd seen Mark turn his face away from the light and try to move.

Frank reached over to the glove compartment and took out a flashlight, then grabbed the blanket that was stowed in the back seat. Hardcastle was already out of the car. He shouted 'It's us' to the man on the ground, who was trying with limited success to scramble away, out of reach. McCormick froze, then slowly lifted his head again.

Frank provided the light, casting it down and a little off to the side. The judge couldn't help it; the '_dammit'_ slipped out as soon as he'd gotten a closer look at the kid, though he'd already figured, from the way he'd sounded on the phone, that it couldn't be good. McCormick's flinch, though, was unexpected, and the second one as he reached out to steady the younger man and get the blanket around his shoulders.

"Hold still, _will_ ya? How bad's the damage?"

He heard a muttered, "I'll live."

"Think you could be a little more specific? Besides your face—"

"Ribs,_ hey_, leave 'em alone." Mark moved away from the probing and fumbled at wrapping the blanket around himself. "They were here," he added urgently, looking up at Frank. "They might be back. You're gonna need some back-up." There was a moment's hesitation and then, "Maybe not Pinford."

Hardcastle cast a quick look up at Frank, too, then back down at the younger man. "How'd ya figure that one out?"

"Somebody'd called those guys who grabbed me. There was a bug, not just the tap, and someone told those guys about it." He was shivering, despite the blanket, and his voice shook a little. "They were waiting for me this morning." He grimaced. "Anyway, why would the task force guys need a bug, if they were sending me in? Just seems kinda convenient, putting it in and then having it get found. And they musta known the damn thing had stopped working."

Things went silent, as though the talk of bugs and taps had brought them both back round to another unspoken matter. Mark cracked first.

"I'm sorry—about not wearing the wire, I mean. But I _was_ set up." He dropped his forehead onto his knees. The rest was a little more muffled. "I _let_ him set me up."

"Whose idea was it, not having a wire?" Hardcastle asked quietly.

"I dunno. I'm not sure. He made me think it was mine." Then his face came back up; his eye met Hardcastle's with mild surprise. "You believe me . . . about Pinford?"

"Ah, well, I sort of arrived there myself. Frank found a reason." Now that it was confession time, the judge was reluctant to bring up Filapiano's name again. "It's kinda complicated, though. Maybe we oughta get outta here."

Mark nodded and leaned forward, trying to get a leg under himself to push up with. After the first failed attempt, Frank said, "Maybe an ambulance?"

"Gimme a sec." McCormick looked up at him in weary accusation. "You just don't want me to bleed on your upholstery." Frank opened his mouth to protest, but the kid cut him off with rueful grin. "That's okay, the last guys made me ride in the trunk."

The judge shook his head and reached out, getting a hand, then an arm, under the younger man's, trying for a place that could handle some upward force. "Where'd they take you?"

Mark grunted as he wrenched himself up and leaned hard on him. "Thataway." He pointed vaguely off to the west, "'bout a mile. I can show you."

"How the hell'd ya get away? How'd you get this far?" Hardcastle asked as he walked him slowly to the car.

"Adrenalin," Mark said, "which is all gone now." Then he frowned soberly. "And Lester. He let me out." He turned to Frank again, as Hardcastle was settling him into the back seat. "We gotta get over there. You'll need some back-up."

"The hospital first," Frank suggested. "And you give us some directions; we'll run it down."

"It'll be too late," Mark shook his head. "You just drive me back the way I came. I can point it out and you call it in . . . but not Pinford," he added stubbornly.

Hardcastle got him in and the door closed, then went round to the other side and climbed in alongside him. Mark stayed steadfastly upright, though he had one arm braced on the door and his breathing was fast and shallow.

He was silent until Frank had started the car. Then he repeated, "That way." He pointed with his free hand,out past Harper's shoulder. "It'll only take a few minutes. They were gonna kill me. They'll kill _him_."

Frank said nothing; just cast a quick look back. Hardcastle nodded once in resignation, though they both knew, from what Mark had said about a bad-guy search party having come and gone, that it was already too late.

00000

He knew the important thing was to stay sitting up. Anything else would be hell on his credibility, and he figured if he passed out, Frank'd throw the light up on the roof and haul him off to the nearest hospital.

"There," he said, "that one." It seemed as though it had taken forever, almost as long as the walking had. The building with the attached garage was dark now, with no vehicles in sight.

The lieutenant shook his head. "I'll call it in. We'll get a warrant; we'll do it right."

"_Frank_," Mark said a little desperately.

"There's no one there." Hardcastle was firm. He'd been leaning forward, giving the place a hard stare. "Not anymore." He sat back again and added, "He swam with the sharks."

It seemed to Mark as though his breathing really couldn't keep up with things anymore and his vision, already blurry, was tunneling down. He felt the judge's arm around his shoulders, easing him back sideways on the seat, and heard him say something to Frank about lights and sirens.

00000

A lot of people wanted to talk to Mark McCormick, but his lawyer wasn't making him available. There was nothing belligerent, or even impolitic about it, just a rock-solid wall of obstruction between the room in the ER where he was being treated, and the world at large.

Frank had heard a couple of Hardcastle's excuses—'They're running some tests; gotta make sure his head's not more scrambled up than usual,' and 'They just gave him something for the pain—probably not a real good time just yet.' It was all offered up with an air of future cooperation, always implied and never stated.

And this was definitely a man in defense-attorney mode, no parole officer in sight—anyway, not until John Dalem showed up, looking irritated. He, at least, got taken aside and talked to. When he'd finally departed, twenty minutes later, he appeared only partly mollified.

Frank, having spent a fair amount of time in pursuit of the warrant and arranging for the search, was starting to wonder if even he was going to get a statement out of McCormick.

"He's okay?" Harper asked, on the outside of a door that was being kept closed to all but authorized personnel.

"He'll live," Hardcastle said tersely.

Frank furrowed his brow in concern. "Wanna be a little more specific? Am I looking at battery, or attempted murder?"

"You got somebody to charge yet?" The judge lifted his head and looked at him with grim hope.

"I think we will, eventually—an arrest warrant, at any rate. Those guys left in a big hurry after they realized they'd misplaced their victim. Lots of physical evidence: fingerprints, couple little widgets off a late-model BMW. Mark left some blood in the back room, too."

He saw Milt wince. "How 'bout Strunk—any sign?"

Frank shook his head.

"Attempted murder," Hardcastle muttered. "And we're damn lucky it wasn't more than that. Busted ribs, a concussion, and some bone broken right below his eye—they think his spleen is only bruised but they wanna watch him just in case." He looked back down at the tile floor between them. "You know Strunk is dead."

"No body yet."

"Keep looking; you'll find it."

Harper took in a slow breath and said, "It's a big desert."

"Yeah, but you'll keep looking. You'll put this together."

Frank nodded once, then after a moment's pause, jerked his chin toward the closed door and said, "Off-limits for me, too? I was kinda hoping to get a statement."

"He might be asleep."

"Who you kidding?" Frank gave him an impatient look.

"All right," Milt pinched the bridge of his nose, "a couple of minutes and don't get him all riled up." He pushed the door open slowly with his other hand and very pointedly went first.

The man on the cart was half sitting up. "Dalem was here; I heard him," he said with a worried frown.

"He's gone. I took care of it. Lie down."

Mark squinted out of his good eye, as if he had to think about that for a moment. "But Dalem—I should talk to him."

"I already did." He had one hand on the younger man's shoulder, firmly discouraging him from rising further. "Frank's here."

Harper stepped up. One look had convinced him that getting a statement could wait until the next day, though, not much to his surprise, the kid was putting up some resistance to being tucked back in.

"Frank," he said breathlessly, "Lester said some stuff—I must not'a been thinking too straight before. He mentioned a place called 'Pico Rojo'."

Harper frowned and shook his head, no recognition, then pulled a notebook out.

"What did he say about it?"

The judge scowled in disapproval.

"Um, that was where he said they were going to take me, that's all." Mark had ended on a tentative note and cast a nervous glance at Hardcastle. "No luck finding Lester yet?" he finally added.

Frank shook his head no. "But I'll take a run at this; see if somebody's heard of it. You just let 'em do what they need to do here, okay?"

Mark nodded soberly and finally let himself be eased back to more nearly horizontal, with some stern admonitions from the judge about staying put and behaving.

Harper stepped out of the room, with Hardcastle close behind him, barely waiting for the snick of the closed door before he leaned in and said, "And if you _do_ find the guy, maybe you could keep it to yourself until he's got his head back on straight?"

Frank cast a quick glance over his shoulder at the closed door. "I dunno, Milt, he's a lot smarter than you think. He's probably already figured at this point we're mostly looking down."

Hardcastle's rejoinder went unspoken, interrupted by the sound of familiar voices locked in low but intense discussion down the corridor.

The judge looked up in aggravation, spotting Trowly and Pruitt. "What the hell are they doing here?"

"Reconnaissance, probably," Frank said dryly. "Come to see how bad the damage is." He left it up in the air as to which damage he was referring. "They knew about the warrant; they were there for the search."

"Pinford, too?"

Frank shrugged. "Couldn't very well keep him out. His case and all."

Hardcastle was tightly angry.

"I kept a close eye on him," Harper assured. "And, anyway, I think maybe the extent of his success kinda surprised him." The lieutenant shook his head and muttered, almost to himself, "Though I dunno what he _thought_ was gonna happen to Mark."

Frank cast another long look at the other two members of the task force. They were even quieter now, as though a consensus had been reached. Trowly glanced over at them very sharply, and then said one last thing to his colleague. Harper held back a thin smile. He'd seen this coming, too, the gradual distance he'd noticed between these two and Pinford as they'd inspected the scene of the crime.

_One bad apple doesn't necessarily spoil the barrel._

The two were heading toward them. Frank managed a quick jab at the judge, meant to convey a whole bunch of things, but mostly, _Will you let me handle this for once?_ Milt seemed to understand, though maybe he didn't completely agree. His face had settled into a grim, cold expression that was somehow more dangerous in appearance than outright anger.

Trowly took the lead, asking, "How's he doing?" in an almost apologetic tone.

"He's talking some," Harper said cryptically, leaving them to wonder exactly what Mark might have talked about.

Trowly cast one long look at the closed door, then he turned back to Harper, not even risking further eye contact with the judge. "Look," he said, "there were some things that got said . . ."

"Who said what?" Frank wasn't letting him get by with passive verbs.

This time Trowly cast a quick glance at the judge before he dropped his voice another notch and said, "Maybe we should take this down to your office."

"Maybe we should get it over with right here," Hardcastle interjected sharply, "or are you gentlemen saying you need counsel?"

"Hell," Pruitt jumped in suddenly, "I'm not getting strung up over some LAPD in-fight. We'll tell you straight up and you and your IA people can sort it out."

The last few words had been almost lost in the stormy approach of Pinford himself. "What the _hell_—?"

Frank interposed, mostly between the newcomer and the two county guys, but with a spare hand holding Hardcastle back as well. "We'll take this outside, I think." He had an angry Pinford by one arm, and everyone else following, perforce, the momentum of anger getting them through the ER doors and out into the ambulance bay.

There the volume rose immediately, with Pinford letting loose a string of invective that ended in "—I shoulda figured the almighty Milton C. _Hardcastle_ would be looking to hang my ass out on the line—not enough to take down one good cop, but now—" He bit down hard and shook his head angrily.

"My dad," his voice quivered with tighter control as he started up again, "he was right; you took the side of some dead punk against one of the best detectives on the force, and when you couldn't make it stick that time, you just kept after him till you had some more damn petty _crap_. I'm just glad he didn't live to see _that_. Now it's my turn, huh? Well, it's guys like you—the whole damn system—that killed my father. You send 'em out to do a job and then nail 'em for doing it."

Trowly and Pruitt had drawn back a little, faces drawn into tight 'no comments'. Harper had let go of the man's arm. Pinford stood there, almost shaking in rage, but making no other move. It was Hardcastle who broke the brittle silence that had followed the diatribe.

"Pinford," he said—cool, very cold. "you should get yourself a good lawyer. You're going to need one."

Harper thought the words might have been a scalpel, cutting down to the heart of the matter. Hardcastle was already half-turned away in dismissal, leaving the detective standing off by himself. Pruitt and Trowly had already withdrawn a few steps off.

00000

Frank supposed he hadn't really needed anyone's encouragement to pursue this thing. He'd already made up his mind, maybe even before he requested the warrant, probably as soon as he'd first seen Mark, lying in a heap beside that gas station. He'd become grimly determined that Pinford not scrape any credit out of this debacle. As for Trowly and Pruitt, he supposed he'd have to let them off the hook, especially since they provided some fairly damning corroboration for Milt's suspicions.

And with twenty hours past since Mark last spoke to Lester Strunk, the investigation had taken on the shape of a recovery, rather than a rescue—dogged tenacity in place of inspired genius, so Frank felt right at home. Which was why he was still behind his desk at six-thirty the following evening, when a familiar, but unexpected visitor arrived. His puzzled frown must have been pretty much all the greeting John Dalem had expected.

Mark's erstwhile parole officer just nodded once in return before he said abruptly, "What the hell is going on up there, anyway? Has Hardcastle lost his mind?"

Frank pinched the bridge of his nose, and gestured to a chair. Dalem sat slowly, leaning forward a little, waiting impatiently.

"I thought Milt talked to you yesterday."

"Talked, yes. Explained, no. I'd heard he could do a pretty good song and dance; I'd never been on the receiving end before. Listen, that whole set-up he put McCormick into; what was he thinking? Pinford may have had a few screws loose, but Hardcastle should've—"

"It wasn't Milt who said yes, it was McCormick."

Dalem was staring. He finally said, "Why?" Then his eyes narrowed down. "Shit, Pinford had something on him. That's it."

"No," Frank interjected sharply. "Nothing. He just got caught in the middle. His name got mentioned on a surveillance tape—Strunk talking about him to his higher-ups, that's all. A lot of nothing."

"Then what the hell was he worried about?" Dalem asked, still looking suspicious. "He should have told Pinford to go pound sand."

"What he was worried about was Pinford going to the parole board, and then them taking him out of this set-up with Milt, just to be contrary. You know how it can go."

Suspicion was overlaid with incredulity. "Come _on_, even Hardcase wouldn't lift the judicial stay and throw him back in the slammer if the damn_Parole _Board ended his little experiment."

Harper sighed. "He knew there wasn't any chance of being sent back to prison, not by Milt, at any rate."

He paused, trying to figure out how to put it—a harder sell than even he had realized. He finally settled on saying it straight out.

"Dammit, he's _happy_ with the arrangement."

Incredulity made way for utter disbelief, followed by a slow shake of Dalem's head and, "You're nuts. I've talked to him."

"How recently?"

Dalem hesitated. "Three weeks," he finally said. "Yeah, 'bout that. The judge keeps him pretty busy, and he's been filing most of the reports." He frowned.

"Well," Frank said practically, "I'd say you should have another little talk with Mark, but he'd never admit it out loud. But I'm telling you, he_is_. And _that's_ why he let a guy like Pinford yank his chain and send him into the lion's den—to keep the parole board off Hardcastle's back."

Dalem sat back for a moment, as if he were considering it all. Another slow shake of his head and he started to rise. "They're _both_ nuts . . . and maybe I do need to talk to him."

There weren't any good-byes, just a final nod from Dalem—half in departure, and half the appearance of a decision having being made.

00000

Frank didn't have a whole lot of time to think about what that meant. Dogged tenacity started to bear fruit the next morning, and later that day he was in possession of news that would have to be delivered in person.

He considered calling ahead, but that would defeat the whole object of going there. It would be the first question asked, no matter who answered the phone. And it wasn't as if he didn't know where to find them, with Mark discharged from the hospital only the afternoon before.

So he showed up unannounced on the doorstep of the main house, a little after dinner time. Not quite unexpected, though—Milt opened the door before he had a chance to ring the bell. His approach must have been noted.

"How's he doing?" Frank asked.

"Fell asleep." Milt muttered, jerking a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the den. And then, "Social call?"

Frank shook his head. He supposed that was probably all the signal Hardcastle needed.

"The kitchen, maybe," Hardcastle said quietly. "I got some coffee brewing."

But before they could move, Mark appeared behind him at the bottom of the steps from the den, in a t-shirt and sweat pants—too many bruises to be a wraith, but just as silent. Milt caught the direction of Frank's gaze and looked back.

"Trying not to wake you," he said with a touch of guilty asperity.

"Wasn't all the way asleep." Mark shrugged and then, to Frank, "Something up?"

"Pico Rojo is a ranch, or it was, at any rate. Owned by a guy named Simmons, who has business ties to a guy named Doyle. Lots of loans."

"Terry Doyle?" Milt asked impatiently.

"The same," Frank replied and then to Mark's questioning look he added, "the mob—laundry services and general utility man, mid-ways up." It had come out more weary than glib, and now that he was partway done, he felt an urge to get it over with. "Bodies."

Hardcastle blinked at the plural. "How many?"

"Three fresh ones."

"Lester?" Mark asked quietly.

"Yeah, and two who are out-of-state talent—a big guy and one in a suit. No ID's, but they all had prints on file."

"Failure is not an option with people like Doyle," Milt observed dryly. "But planting 'em on land he can be connected to?"

"Yeah," Frank mused, "it's always a tough choice—someplace anonymous that you can't control access to, or the home field, where you can at least discourage visitors."

He saw Mark staring at them both as though they were speaking a foreign language. He finally turned and walk a little unsteadily back to the sofa.

Milt followed him in, letting out a sigh and saying, "Listen, kiddo, I'm glad Lester saw the light and all, but—"

"'But'_what_?" Mark interjected, and then answered his own question, "But he's an ex-con . . . and Pinford, _he'_s a cop. So he'll probably get a commendation for all of this," he added bitterly.

Harper planted his hands in his jacket pockets and shook his head adamantly. "Not a chance. Internal Affairs is all over this one. Trowly and Pruitt are doing some serious cooperating. We may never prove Pinford made the call that set you up, but those guys in IA know how to read a map and there's big arrows on this one, all pointing at him."

Mark had sat down heavily. "But," he said, breathing a little shallowly again, "if IA's involved then maybe the Parole Board—"

"Don't think so," Harper said. "Dalem seems satisfied." This got him a quick, surprised glance from Milt. "He might want to ask you a couple of questions, though," Frank added, still addressing Mark. "My advice is you ought to be honest with him."

This was left lying for a moment, and partly to cover the awkwardness, Harper talked business. "I'll still need a statement. You're gonna need to ID those guys as the ones who attacked you. No rush. We got photos to work from."

Mark nodded wordlessly, still obviously thinking about the advice. Frank nodded to Milt, who'd also fallen quiet.

"Guess I should get home. Claudia made meatloaf," he sighed, "_yesterday_," he added with chagrin. "Good thing it warms up."

After three straight nights of overtime, he thought dinner might not be the only thing a little cool at home.

00000

The judge saw Frank to the door, then returned. Mark was sitting on the edge of the couch, leaning forward, elbows on his knees and hands loosely clasped in front of them. Neither of them spoke for a moment, but Hardcastle cracked first.

"I never said it's black and white. That's how guys like Filapiano think—Pinford, too—that once you're on the right team, it doesn't matter what you do."

Mark nodded.

"And I'm sorry about Lester. But why the hell didn't he just walk away from it when he had the chance?"

"Oh," Mark looked up slowly, frowning, as though it was hard to explain the obvious, "he didn't, not really—believe he had a chance, I mean. He didn't think he could run. And he wasn't gonna go back to prison, no matter what. He was less afraid of dying."

"I coulda helped him," Hardcastle said staunchly. "Coulda worked something out."

"I told him that." Mark looked pensive. "I couldn't get him to believe me."

Hardcastle considered that, then shifted slightly. "Dalem. You don't have to talk to him."

Mark lifted his head and looked at him in some surprise. "Yes I do," he said quietly. "He's _still_ my damn P.O. If he says 'show up', I better be there. Don't tell me after all this you're gonna make waves?"

It was that close to a formal confession, and Hardcastle was taken aback. "No, I mean, I'll go to the board. I'll work something out."

"The board, huh? Better and better." McCormick shook his head. "Look, Hardcase, I handled Dalem for six months. I can patch this up, too, just don't get the parole board involved."

The judge hoped his doubts didn't show too much on his face.

00000

Another week passed. Mark got his right eye open again. Frank got his statement, and a positive ID was made on the post mortem photographs, for what it was worth. Aside from that, there were no further repercussions, and Mark found himself gradually able to take deeper breaths.

Then the following Friday, nine days out, the gatehouse phone rang. Mark answered it unthinking, and Dalem's voice took him by surprise.

He was short and to the point. "Just a reminder, we've got a five o'clock."

Well, they hadn't, not for a month now, and before that it had been spotty since he'd moved to Gulls Way. But somehow this didn't seem like a good time to argue the point. He swallowed hard and managed to get a few words out that sounded almost matter-of-fact.

"Yeah. Sure. Five."

When he hung up, his gaze was drawn back up to the window, and toward the main house, desperately wishing he could talk to Hardcastle about this, and just as desperately knowing he couldn't.

00000

He slipped out in the early afternoon, sport coat and tie already stowed in the Coyote even earlier. He was prepared to discuss errands, and offer good reasons why the judge needn't accompany him, but somehow he thought push wasn't going to come to shove. He'd been left alone most of the day, as though Hardcastle suspected something was up, and didn't want to be in a position of knowing exactly what.. When the time came, he made a clean getaway.

He'd allowed an extra hour above the necessary travel time, and he risked part of it driving up the Pacific Coast Highway, looking for a quiet spot where he could pull over and sit undisturbed. Now he'd found it. The late afternoon sun, already lost behind the clouds on the western horizon, and the deserted beach—it all matched his mood perfectly.

_Sometimes the harder you try to hold onto something, the more easily it slips from your grasp. _

He had no idea what defense he could use with Dalem. He thought maybe he ought to have let Hardcastle intervene. Then he shook his head no. Win or lose, he preferred to have his fate in his own hands for once.

00000

4:55. He half-hoped Dalem's secretary would be gone for the day—no such luck—and he tried to smile lightly through her sympathetic and puzzled study of his face. The swelling had gone down considerably, but the remaining bruises were still impressive.

Dalem's 4:30 slipped out into the waiting area, heaving a sigh of relief and sauntering past the desk—a man with another week's reprieve. McCormick didn't have time to envy him. He heard himself announced and got to his feet, compelled despite his reluctance.

He straightened his tie and grasped the knob, not even trying for a smile. Dalem was behind his desk, looking down at a file. Mark wasn't sure it was his own, though it was about the right heft.

He stood there for a moment, ignored, then quietly cleared his throat. Dalem barely lifted his eyes.

"Sit down," he said calmly.

No anger, not even a hint of irritation. This might be very bad, Mark thought, if he was past both of those. A moment or two more of file reading. Then that was closed and Dalem was looking at him dead-on.

"It's time for a change," the P.O. said quietly.

Mark swallowed hard, not sure what he was supposed to say.

"See," Dalem gestured, one hand palm up on the desk, resting on the file, "when you wind up dead . . . or worse—"

Mark almost managed to stifle an altogether inappropriate smile. '_What's worse than dead, Judge?' That's what you said. As if you couldn't name a few things yourself._

Dalem looked grim. "Yeah, _dead_," he repeated, shaking his head at the younger man's apparent levity. "Then they'll come to me. 'Why the hell didn't you _do_ something about this?' Like I have any control over the situation the way it is now."

"It's not your responsibility."

"Then who-the-hell's is it?"

Mark looked puzzled. "Ah . . . Hardcastle's, I guess."

"Yeah, except he's not showing a whole lot of responsibility here, not that I've seen lately."

"This wasn't _his_ fault."

Dalem frowned. "That's what Harper said, too." He shook his head doubtfully. "I guess I had to hear it straight from you."

McCormick just sat there for a moment, trying to figure out where the conversation was going. He finally straightened up a little and said, "That's what you called me down here for? To ask me that?"

"No," Dalem replied quietly. "It was to give you notice. I won't be held responsible for something I have no say in."

"I didn't ask you to."

"You?_You'll_ be dead," Dalem snarled. "It's the damn parole board that'll be second-guessing me. And I'm not going to be put in that position."

Mark said nothing.

Dalem finally heaved a sigh. "You don't get it, do you? This is a system of checks and balances. You thought _I_ was out to get you, huh? You thought an ordinary parole officer had the power of damnation. Hah. I'm your goddamn _safety_ net, McCormick. You've got a guy over there who can tell you to walk through fire and you're going to have to do it. He'll be judge, jury, and executioner."

"He won't," Mark protested quietly. "He wouldn't put me back in just because of something like that."

"Maybe not that, then, but I know the man. I've always admired him, but he rides hell-bent for leather. He'll go down, sooner or later, and he just might take you with him."

Mark opened his mouth and then shut it. He supposed he ought to argue the point, but it occurred to him that Dalem was possibly right.

"It might happen," McCormick finally said, and the look of astonishment on the other man's face was damn-near priceless. "There are risks to everything," he added, with more confidence, "and some risks are worth taking."

Dalem shook his head. "You're as crazy as he is. You deserve each other."

"Maybe so." Mark allowed himself a smile.

"All right," Dalem said slowly, as if against his better judgment, "I'll stay on in an adjunctive position. God knows you still need _some_ kind of safety net—just as long as you realize I'm gonna be a helluva long way down—but I'm letting the board know that Hardcase—"

"_You_ call him that?"

"Well," Dalem shrugged, "everybody does." He frowned momentarily, as if he'd lost his main thought.

"You're gonna tell the board something," Mark nudged helpfully.

"_Yeah_." His almost-former P.O. grimaced. "He's responsible for the day-to-day oversight now. He can do the damn paperwork, too. I give up."

Mark's smile broadened.

Dalem huffed. "Just don't come whining to me if you wind up dead."

"Or worse." McCormick grinned.


End file.
